Tales of Twilight and the Unseen

CONTENTS:

Preface
The Brown Hand
The Usher of Lea House School
B. 24
The Great Keinplatz Experiment
A Literary Mosaic
Playing with Fire
The Ring of Troth
The Los Amigos Fiasco
How it Happened
Lot No. 249
De Profundis
The Lift







PREFACE

These stories have already been published in six separate volumes,
which subdivided them roughly into those which dealt with the sea,
with sport, with war, with the preternatural, with medicine and
with history. They have been received in this form with so much
kindly appreciation by the public that my publisher and I hope
that they may get a permanent home on many bookshelves when issued
under a single cover and at a moderate price. I am occasionally
asked which of these varied subjects and styles represents my own
particular choice. The answer is that I am interested in many
aspects of life, and try to write only of that which really
attracts me, but that if it were needful to discriminate, and if
all my work were to be destroyed save only that one single section
which I might elect to preserve, my choice would certainly be
those short historical pictures which come under the heading of
"Tales of Long Ago."

Arthur Conan Doyle.

April 26, 1929.



TALES OF TWILIGHT AND THE UNSEEN



THE BROWN HAND

Everyone knows that Sir Dominick Holden, the famous Indian surgeon,
made me his heir, and that his death changed me in an hour from a
hard-working and impecunious young man to a well-to-do landed
proprietor. Many know also that there were at least five people
between the inheritance and me, and that Sir Dominick's selection
appeared to be altogether arbitrary and whimsical. I can assure them,
however, that they are quite mistaken, and that, although I only knew
Sir Dominick in the closing years of his life, there were, none the
less, very real reasons why he should show his goodwill towards me. As
a matter of fact, though I say it myself, no man ever did more for
another than I did for my Indian uncle. I cannot expect the story to
be believed, but it is so singular that I should feel that it was a
breach of duty if I did not put it upon record--so here it is, and
your belief or incredulity is your own affair.

Sir Dominick Holden, C.B., K.C.S.I., and I don't know what besides,
was the most distinguished Indian surgeon of his day. In the Army
originally, he afterwards settled down into civil practice in Bombay,
and visited, as a consultant, every part of India. His name is best
remembered in connection with the Oriental Hospital which he founded
and supported. The time came, however, when his iron constitution
began to show signs of the long strain to which he had subjected it,
and his brother practitioners (who were not, perhaps, entirely
disinterested upon the point) were unanimous in recommending him to
return to England. He held on so long as he could, but at last he
developed nervous symptoms of a very pronounced character, and so came
back, a broken man, to his native county of Wiltshire. He bought a
considerable estate with an ancient manor-house upon the edge of
Salisbury Plain, and devoted his old age to the study of Comparative
Pathology, which had been his learned hobby all his life, and in which
he was a foremost authority.

We of the family were, as may be imagined, much excited by the news of
the return of this rich and childless uncle to England. On his part,
although by no means exuberant in his hospitality, he showed some
sense of his duty to his relations, and each of us in turn had an
invitation to visit him. From the accounts of my cousins it appeared
to be a melancholy business, and it was with mixed feelings that I at
last received my own summons to appear at Rodenhurst. My wife was so
carefully excluded in the invitation that my first impulse was to
refuse it, but the interests of the children had to be considered, and
so, with her consent, I set out one October afternoon upon my visit to
Wiltshire, with little thought of what that visit was to entail.

My uncle's estate was situated where the arable land of the plains
begins to swell upwards into the rounded chalk hills which are
characteristic of the county. As I drove from Dinton Station in the
waning light of that autumn day, I was impressed by the weird nature
of the scenery. The few scattered cottages of the peasants were so
dwarfed by the huge evidences of prehistoric life, that the present
appeared to be a dream and the past to be the obtrusive and masterful
reality. The road wound through the valleys, formed by a succession of
grassy hills, and the summit of each was cut and carved into the most
elaborate fortifications, some circular, and some square, but all on a
scale which has defied the winds and the rains of many centuries. Some
call them Roman and some British, but their true origin and the
reasons for this particular tract of country being so interlaced with
entrenchments have never been finally made clear. Here and there on
the long, smooth, olive-coloured slopes there rose small, rounded
barrows or tumuli. Beneath them lie the cremated ashes of the race
which cut so deeply into the hills, but their graves tell us nothing
save that a jar full of dust represents the man who once laboured
under the sun.

It was through this weird country that I approached my uncle's
residence of Rodenhurst, and the house was, as I found, in due keeping
with its surroundings. Two broken and weather-stained pillars, each
surmounted by a mutilated heraldic emblem, flanked the entrance to a
neglected drive. A cold wind whistled through the elms which lined it,
and the air was full of the drifting leaves. At the far end, under the
gloomy arch of trees, a single yellow lamp burned steadily. In the dim
half-light of the coming night I saw a long, low building stretching
out two irregular wings, with deep eaves, a sloping gambrel roof, and
walls which were criss-crossed with timber balks in the fashion of the
Tudors. The cheery light of a fire flickered in the broad, latticed
window to the left of the low-porched door, and this, as it proved,
marked the study of my uncle, for it was thither that I was led by his
butler in order to make my host's acquaintance.

He was cowering over his fire, for the moist chill of an English
autumn had set him shivering. His lamp was unlit, and I only saw the
red glow of the embers beating upon a huge, craggy face, with a Red
Indian nose and cheek, and deep furrows and seams from eye to chin,
the sinister marks of hidden volcanic fires. He sprang up at my
entrance with something of an old-world courtesy and welcomed me
warmly to Rodenhurst. At the same time I was conscious, as the lamp
was carried in, that it was a very critical pair of light-blue eyes
which looked out at me from under shaggy eyebrows, like scouts beneath
a bush, and that this outlandish uncle of mine was carefully reading
off my character with all the ease of a practised observer and an
experienced man of the world.

For my part I looked at him, and looked again, for I had never seen a
man whose appearance was more fitted to hold one's attention. His
figure was the framework of a giant, but he had fallen away until his
coat dangled straight down in a shocking fashion from a pair of broad
and bony shoulders. All his limbs were huge and yet emaciated, and I
could not take my gaze from his knobby wrists, and long, gnarled
hands. But his eyes--those peering, light-blue eyes--they were the
most arrestive of any of his peculiarities. It was not their colour
alone, nor was it the ambush of hair in which they lurked; but it was
the expression which I read in them. For the appearance and bearing of
the man were masterful, and one expected a certain corresponding
arrogance in his eyes, but instead of that I read the look which tells
of a spirit cowed and crushed, the furtive, expectant look of the dog
whose master has taken the whip from the rack. I formed my own medical
diagnosis upon one glance at those critical and yet appealing eyes. I
believed that he was stricken with some mortal ailment, that he knew
himself to be exposed to sudden death, and that he lived in terror of
it. Such was my judgment--a false one, as the event showed; but I
mention it that it may help you to realize the look which I read in
his eyes.

My uncle's welcome was, as I have said, a courteous one, and in an
hour or so I found myself seated between him and his wife at a
comfortable dinner, with curious, pungent delicacies upon the table,
and a stealthy, quick-eyed Oriental waiter behind his chair. The old
couple had come round to that tragic imitation of the dawn of life
when husband and wife, having lost or scattered all those who were
their intimates, find themselves face to face and alone once more,
their work done, and the end nearing fast. Those who have reached that
stage in sweetness and love, who can change their winter into a
gentle, Indian summer, have come as victors through the ordeal of
life. Lady Holden was a small, alert woman with a kindly eye, and her
expression as she glanced at him was a certificate of character to her
husband. And yet, though I read a mutual love in their glances, I read
also mutual horror, and recognized in her face some reflection of that
stealthy fear which I had detected in his. Their talk was sometimes
merry and sometimes sad, but there was a forced note in their
merriment and a naturalness in their sadness which told me that a
heavy heart beat upon either side of me.

We were sitting over our first glass of wine, and the servants had
left the room, when the conversation took a turn which produced a
remarkable effect upon my host and hostess. I cannot recall what it
was which started the topic of the supernatural, but it ended in my
showing them that the abnormal in psychical experiences was a subject
to which I had, like many neurologists, devoted a great deal of
attention. I concluded by narrating my experiences when, as a member
of the Psychical Research Society, I had formed one of a committee of
three who spent the night in a haunted house. Our adventures were
neither exciting nor convincing, but, such as it was, the story
appeared to interest my auditors in a remarkable degree. They listened
with an eager silence, and I caught a look of intelligence between
them which I could not understand. Lady Holden immediately afterwards
rose and left the room.

Sir Dominick pushed the cigar-box over to me, and we smoked for some
little time in silence. That huge, bony hand of his was twitching as
he raised it with his cheroot to his lips, and I felt that the man's
nerves were vibrating like fiddle-strings. My instincts told me that
he was on the verge of some intimate confidence, and I feared to speak
lest I should interrupt it. At last he turned towards me with a
spasmodic gesture like a man who throws his last scruple to the winds.

"From the little that I have seen of you it appears to me, Dr.
Hardacre," said he, "that you are the very man I have wanted to meet."

"I am delighted to hear it, sir."

"Your head seems to be cool and steady. You will acquit me of any
desire to flatter you, for the circumstances are too serious to permit
of insincerities. You have some special knowledge upon these subjects,
and you evidently view them from that philosophical standpoint which
robs them of all vulgar terror. I presume that the sight of an
apparition would not seriously discompose you?"

"I think not, sir."

"Would even interest you, perhaps?"

"Most intensely."

"As a psychical observer, you would probably investigate it in as
impersonal a fashion as an astronomer investigates a wandering comet?"

"Precisely."

He gave a heavy sigh.

"Believe me, Dr. Hardacre, there was a time when I could have spoken
as you do now. My nerve was a byword in India. Even the Mutiny never
shook it for an instant. And yet you see what I am reduced to--the
most timorous man, perhaps, in all this county of Wiltshire. Do not
speak too bravely upon this subject, or you may find yourself
subjected to as long-drawn a test as I am--a test which can only end
in the madhouse or the grave."

I waited patiently until he should see fit to go farther in his
confidence. His preamble had, I need not say, filled me with interest
and expectation.

"For some years, Dr. Hardacre," he continued, "my life and that of my
wife have been made miserable by a cause which is so grotesque that it
borders upon the ludicrous. And yet familiarity has never made it more
easy to bear--on the contrary, as time passes my nerves become more
worn and shattered by the constant attrition. If you have no physical
fears, Dr. Hardacre, I should very much value your opinion upon this
phenomenon which troubles us so."

"For what it is worth my opinion is entirely at your service. May I
ask the nature of the phenomenon?"

"I think that your experiences will have a higher evidential value if
you are not told in advance what you may expect to encounter. You are
yourself aware of the quibbles of unconscious cerebration and
subjective impressions with which a scientific sceptic may throw a
doubt upon your statement. It would be as well to guard against them
in advance."

"What shall I do, then?"

"I will tell you. Would you mind following me this way?" He led me out
of the dining-room and down a long passage until we came to a terminal
door. Inside there was a large, bare room fitted as a laboratory, with
numerous scientific instruments and bottles. A shelf ran along one
side, upon which there stood a long line of glass jars containing
pathological and anatomical specimens.

"You see that I still dabble in some of my old studies," said Sir
Dominick. "These jars are the remains of what was once a most
excellent collection, but unfortunately I lost the greater part of
them when my house was burned down in Bombay in '92. It was a most
unfortunate affair for me--in more ways than one. I had examples of
many rare conditions, and my splenic collection was probably unique.
These are the survivors."

I glanced over them, and saw that they really were of a very great
value and rarity from a pathological point of view: bloated organs,
gaping cysts, distorted bones, odious parasites--a singular exhibition
of the products of India.

"There is, as you see, a small settee here," said my host. "It was far
from our intention to offer a guest so meagre an accommodation, but
since affairs have taken this turn, it would be a great kindness upon
your part if you would consent to spend the night in this apartment. I
beg that you will not hesitate to let me know if the idea should be at
all repugnant to you."

"On the contrary," I said, "it is most acceptable."

"My own room is the second on the left, so that if you should feel
that you are in need of company a call would always bring me to your
side."

"I trust that I shall not be compelled to disturb you."

"It is unlikely that I shall be asleep. I do not sleep much. Do not
hesitate to summon me."

And so with this agreement we joined Lady Holden in the drawing-room
and talked of lighter things.

It was no affectation upon my part to say that the prospect of my
night's adventure was an agreeable one. I have no pretence to greater
physical courage than my neighbours, but familiarity with a subject
robs it of those vague and undefined terrors which are the most
appalling to the imaginative mind. The human brain is capable of only
one strong emotion at a time, and if it be filled with curiosity or
scientific enthusiasm, there is no room for fear. It is true that I
had my uncle's assurance that he had himself originally taken this
point of view, but I reflected that the break-down of his nervous
system might be due to his forty years in India as much as to any
psychical experiences which had befallen him. I at least was sound in
nerve and brain, and it was with something of the pleasurable thrill
of anticipation with which the sportsman takes his position beside the
haunt of his game that I shut the laboratory door behind me, and
partially undressing, lay down upon the rug-covered settee.

It was not an ideal atmosphere for a bed-room. The air was heavy with
many chemical odours, that of methylated spirit predominating. Nor
were the decorations of my chamber very sedative. The odious line of
glass jars with their relics of disease and suffering stretched in
front of my very eyes. There was no blind to the window, and a
three-quarter moon streamed its white light into the room, tracing a
silver square with filigree lattices upon the opposite wall. When I
had extinguished my candle this one bright patch in the midst of the
general gloom had certainly an eerie and discomposing aspect. A rigid
and absolute silence reigned throughout the old house, so that the low
swish of the branches in the garden came softly and smoothly to my
ears. It may have been the hypnotic lullaby of this gentle susurrus,
or it may have been the result of my tiring day, but after many
dozings and many efforts to regain my clearness of perception, I fell
at last into a deep and dreamless sleep.

I was awakened by some sound in the room, and I instantly raised
myself upon my elbow on the couch. Some hours had passed, for the
square patch upon the wall had slid downwards and sideways until it
lay obliquely at the end of my bed. The rest of the room was in deep
shadow. At first I could see nothing, presently, as my eyes became
accustomed to the faint light, I was aware, with a thrill which all my
scientific absorption could not entirely prevent, that something was
moving slowly along the line of the wall. A gentle, shuffling sound,
as of soft slippers, came to my ears, and I dimly discerned a human
figure walking stealthily from the direction of the door. As it
emerged into the patch of moonlight I saw very clearly what it was and
how it was employed. It was a man, short and squat, dressed in some
sort of dark-grey gown, which hung straight from his shoulders to his
feet. The moon shone upon the side of his face, and I saw that it was
chocolate-brown in colour, with a ball of black hair like a woman's at
the back of his head. He walked slowly, and his eyes were cast upwards
towards the line of bottles which contained those gruesome remnants of
humanity. He seemed to examine each jar with attention, and then to
pass on to the next. When he had come to the end of the line,
immediately opposite my bed, he stopped, faced me, threw up his hands
with a gesture of despair, and vanished from my sight.

I have said that he threw up his hands, but I should have said his
arms, for as he assumed that attitude of despair I observed a singular
peculiarity about his appearance. He had only one hand! As the sleeves
drooped down from the upflung arms I saw the left plainly, but the
right ended in a knobby and unsightly stump. In every other way his
appearance was so natural, and I had both seen and heard him so
clearly, that I could easily have believed that he was an Indian
servant of Sir Dominick's who had come into my room in search of
something. It was only his sudden disappearance which suggested
anything more sinister to me. As it was I sprang from my couch, lit a
candle, and examined the whole room carefully. There were no signs of
my visitor, and I was forced to conclude that there had really been
something outside the normal laws of Nature in his appearance. I lay
awake for the remainder of the night, but nothing else occurred to
disturb me.

I am an early riser, but my uncle was an even earlier one, for I found
him pacing up and down the lawn at the side of the house. He ran
towards me in his eagerness when he saw me come out from the door.

"Well, well!" he cried. "Did you see him?"

"An Indian with one hand?"

"Precisely."

"Yes, I saw him"--and I told him all that occurred. When I had
finished, he led the way into his study.

"We have a little time before breakfast," said he. "It will suffice to
give you an explanation of this extraordinary affair--so far as I can
explain that which is essentially inexplicable. In the first place,
when I tell you that for four years I have never passed one single
night, either in Bombay, aboard ship, or here in England without my
sleep being broken by this fellow, you will understand why it is that
I am a wreck of my former self. His programme is always the same. He
appears by my bedside, shakes me roughly by the shoulder, passes from
my room into the laboratory, walks slowly along the line of my
bottles, and then vanishes. For more than a thousand times he has gone
through the same routine."

"What does he want?"

"He wants his hand."

"His hand?"

"Yes, it came about in this way. I was summoned to Peshawur for a
consultation some ten years ago, and while there I was asked to look
at the hand of a native who was passing through with an Afghan
caravan. The fellow came from some mountain tribe living away at the
back of beyond somewhere on the other side of Kaffiristan. He talked a
bastard Pushtoo, and it was all I could do to understand him. He was
suffering from a soft sarcomatous swelling of one of the metacarpal
joints, and I made him realize that it was only by losing his hand
that he could hope to save his life. After much persuasion he
consented to the operation, and he asked me, when it was over, what
fee I demanded. The poor fellow was almost a beggar, so that the idea
of a fee was absurd, but I answered in jest that my fee should be his
hand, and that I proposed to add it to my pathological collection.

"To my surprise he demurred very much to the suggestion, and he
explained that according to his religion it was an all-important
matter that the body should be reunited after death, and so make a
perfect dwelling for the spirit. The belief is, of course, an old one,
and the mummies of the Egyptians arose from an analogous superstition.
I answered him that his hand was already off, and asked him how he
intended to preserve it. He replied that he would pickle it in salt
and carry it about with him. I suggested that it might be safer in my
keeping than in his, and that I had better means than salt for
preserving it. On realizing that I really intended to carefully keep
it, his opposition vanished instantly. 'But remember, sahib,' said he,
'I shall want it back when I am dead.' I laughed at the remark, and so
the matter ended. I returned to my practice, and he no doubt in the
course of time was able to continue his journey to Afghanistan.

"Well, as I told you last night, I had a bad fire in my house at
Bombay. Half of it was burned down, and, amongst other things, my
pathological collection was largely destroyed. What you see are the
poor remains of it. The hand of the hillman went with the rest, but I
gave the matter no particular thought at the time. That was six years
ago.

"Four years ago--two years after the fire--I was awakened one night by
a furious tugging at my sleeve. I sat up under the impression that my
favourite mastiff was trying to arouse me. Instead of this, I saw my
Indian patient of long ago, dressed in the long, grey gown which was
the badge of his people. He was holding up his stump and looking
reproachfully at me. He then went over to my bottles, which at that
time I kept in my room, and he examined them carefully, after which he
gave a gesture of anger and vanished. I realized that he had just
died, and that he had come to claim my promise that I should keep his
limb in safety for him.

"Well, there you have it all, Dr. Hardacre. Every night at the same
hour for four years this performance has been repeated. It is a simple
thing in itself, but it has worn me out like water dropping on a
stone. It has brought a vile insomnia with it, for I cannot sleep now
for the expectation of his coming. It has poisoned my old age and that
of my wife, who has been the sharer in this great trouble. But there
is the breakfast gong, and she will be waiting impatiently to know how
it fared with you last night. We are both much indebted to you for
your gallantry, for it takes something from the weight of our
misfortune when we share it, even for a single night, with a friend,
and it reassures us to our sanity, which we are sometimes driven to
question."

This was the curious narrative which Sir Dominick confided to me--a
story which to many would have appeared to be a grotesque
impossibility, but which, after my experience of the night before, and
my previous knowledge of such things, I was prepared to accept as an
absolute fact. I thought deeply over the matter, and brought the whole
range of my reading and experience to bear over it. After breakfast, I
surprised my host and hostess by announcing that I was returning to
London by the next train.

"My dear doctor," cried Sir Dominick in great distress, "you make me
feel that I have been guilty of a gross breach of hospitality in
intruding this unfortunate matter upon you. I should have borne my own
burden."

"It is, indeed, that matter which is taking me to London," I answered;
"but you are mistaken, I assure you, if you think that my experience
of last night was an unpleasant one to me. On the contrary, I am about
to ask your permission to return in the evening and spend one more
night in your laboratory. I am very eager to see this visitor once
again."

My uncle was exceedingly anxious to know what I was about to do, but
my fears of raising false hopes prevented me from telling him. I was
back in my own consulting-room a little after luncheon, and was
confirming my memory of a passage in a recent book upon occultism
which had arrested my attention when I read it.

"In the case of earth-bound spirits," said my authority, "some one
dominant idea obsessing them at the hour of death is sufficient to
hold them in this material world. They are the amphibia of this life
and of the next, capable of passing from one to the other as the
turtle passes from land to water. The causes which may bind a soul so
strongly to a life which its body has abandoned are any violent
emotion. Avarice, revenge, anxiety, love and pity have all been known
to have this effect. As a rule it springs from some unfulfilled wish,
and when the wish has been fulfilled the material bond relaxes. There
are many cases upon record which show the singular persistence of
these visitors, and also their disappearance when their wishes have
been fulfilled, or in some cases when a reasonable compromise has been
effected."

"/A reasonable compromise effected/"--those were the words which I had
brooded over all the morning, and which I now verified in the
original. No actual atonement could be made here--but a reasonable
compromise! I made my way as fast as a train could take me to the
Shadwell Seamen's Hospital, where my old friend Jack Hewett was
house-surgeon. Without explaining the situation I made him understand
what it was that I wanted.

"A brown man's hand!" said he, in amazement. "What in the world do you
want that for?"

"Never mind. I'll tell you some day. I know that your wards are full
of Indians."

"I should think so. But a hand----" He thought a little, and then
struck a bell.

"Travers," said he to a student-dresser, "what became of the hands of
the Lascar which we took off yesterday? I mean the fellow from the
East India Dock who got caught in the steam winch."

"They are in the /post-mortem/ room, sir."

"Just pack one of them in antiseptics and give it to Dr. Hardacre."

And so I found myself back at Rodenhurst before dinner with this
curious outcome of my day in town. I still said nothing to Sir
Dominick, but I slept that night in the laboratory, and I placed the
Lascar's hand in one of the glass jars at the end of my couch.

So interested was I in the result of my experiment that sleep was out
of the question. I sat with a shaded lamp beside me and waited
patiently for my visitor. This time I saw him clearly from the first.
He appeared beside the door, nebulous for an instant, and then
hardening into as distinct an outline as any living man. The slippers
beneath his grey gown were red and heelless, which accounted for the
low, shuffling sound which he made as he walked. As on the previous
night he passed slowly along the line of bottles until he paused
before that which contained the hand. He reached up to it, his whole
figure quivering with expectation, took it down, examined it eagerly,
and then, with a face which was convulsed with fury and
disappointment, he hurled it down on the floor. There was a crash
which resounded throughout the house, and when I looked up the
mutilated Indian had disappeared. A moment later my door flew open and
Sir Dominick rushed in.

"You are not hurt?" he cried.

"No--but deeply disappointed."

He looked in astonishment at the splinters of glass, and the brown
hand lying upon the floor.

"Good God!" he cried. "What is this?"

I told him my idea and its wretched sequel. He listened intently, but
shook his head.

"It was well thought of," said he, "but I fear that there is no such
easy end to my sufferings. But one thing I now insist upon. It is that
you shall never again upon any pretext occupy this room. My fears that
something might have happened to you--when I heard that crash--have
been the most acute of all the agonies which I have undergone. I will
not expose myself to a repetition of it."

He allowed me, however, to spend the remainder of the night where I
was, and I lay there worrying over the problem and lamenting my own
failure. With the first light of morning there was the Lascar's hand
still lying upon the floor to remind me of my fiasco. I lay looking at
it--and as I lay suddenly an idea flew like a bullet through my head
and brought me quivering with excitement out of my couch. I raised the
grim relic from where it had fallen. Yes, it was indeed so. The hand
was the /left/ hand of the Lascar.

By the first train I was on my way to town, and hurried at once to the
Seamen's Hospital. I remembered that both hands of the Lascar had been
amputated, but I was terrified lest the precious organ which I was in
search of might have been already consumed in the crematory. My
suspense was soon ended. It had still been preserved in the
/post-mortem/ room. And so I returned to Rodenhurst in the evening
with my mission accomplished and the material for a fresh experiment.

But Sir Dominick Holden would not hear of my occupying the laboratory
again. To all my entreaties he turned a deaf ear. It offended his
sense of hospitality, and he could no longer permit it. I left the
hand, therefore, as I had done its fellow the night before, and I
occupied a comfortable bedroom in another portion of the house, some
distance from the scene of my adventures.

But in spite of that my sleep was not destined to be uninterrupted. In
the dead of night my host burst into my room, a lamp in his hand. His
huge, gaunt figure was enveloped in a loose dressing-gown, and his
whole appearance might certainly have seemed more formidable to a
weak-nerved man than that of the Indian of the night before. But it
was not his entrance so much as his expression which amazed me. He had
turned suddenly younger by twenty years at the least. His eyes were
shining, his features radiant, and he waved one hand in triumph over
his head. I sat up astounded, staring sleepily at this extraordinary
visitor. But his words soon drove the sleep from my eyes.

"We have done it! We have succeeded!" he shouted. "My dear Hardacre,
how can I ever in this world repay you?"

"You don't mean to say that it is all right?"

"Indeed I do. I was sure that you would not mind being awakened to
hear such blessed news."

"Mind! I should think not indeed. But is it really certain?"

"I have no doubt whatever upon the point. I owe you such a debt, my
dear nephew, as I have never owed a man before, and never expected to.
What can I possibly do for you that is commensurate? Providence must
have sent you to my rescue. You have saved both my reason and my life,
for another six months of this must have seen me either in a cell or a
coffin. And my wife--it was wearing her out before my eyes. Never
could I have believed that any human being could have lifted this
burden off me." He seized my hand and wrung it in his bony grip.

"It was only an experiment--a forlorn hope--but I am delighted from my
heart that it has succeeded. But how do you know that it is all right?
Have you seen something?"

He seated himself at the foot of my bed.

"I have seen enough," said he. "It satisfies me that I shall be
troubled no more. What has passed is easily told. You know that at a
certain hour this creature always comes to me. To-night he arrived at
the usual time, and aroused me with even more violence than is his
custom. I can only surmise that his disappointment of last night
increased the bitterness of his anger against me. He looked angrily at
me, and then went on his usual round. But in a few minutes I saw him,
for the fist time since this persecution began, return to my chamber.
He was smiling. I saw the gleam of his white teeth through the dim
light. He stood facing me at the end of my bed, and three times he
made the low, Eastern salaam which is their solemn leave-taking. And
the third time that he bowed he raised his arms over his head, and I
saw his /two/ hands outstretched in the air. So he vanished, and, as I
believe, for ever."



So that is the curious experience which won me the affection and the
gratitude of my celebrated uncle, the famous Indian surgeon. His
anticipations were realised, and never again was he disturbed by the
visits of the restless hillman in search of his lost member. Sir
Dominick and Lady Holden spent a very happy old age, unclouded, so far
as I know, by any trouble, and they finally died during the great
influenza epidemic within a few weeks of each other. In his lifetime
he always turned to me for advice in everything which concerned that
English life of which he knew so little; and I aided him also in the
purchase and development of his estates. It was no great surprise to
me, therefore, that I found myself eventually promoted over the heads
of five exasperated cousins, and changed in a single day from a
hard-working country doctor into the head of an important Wiltshire
family. I, at least, have reason to bless the memory of the man with
the brown hand, and the day when I was fortunate enough to relieve
Rodenhurst of his unwelcome presence.



THE USHER OF LEA HOUSE SCHOOL

Mr. Lumsden, the senior partner of Lumsden and Westmacott, the
well-known scholastic and clerical agents, was a small, dapper man,
with a sharp, abrupt manner, a critical eye, and an incisive way of
speaking.

"Your name, sir?" said he, sitting, pen in hand, with his long,
red-lined folio in front of him.

"Harold Weld."

"Oxford or Cambridge?"

"Cambridge."

"Honours?"

"No, sir."

"Athlete?"

"Nothing remarkable, I am afraid."

"Not a Blue?"

"Oh no."

Mr. Lumsden shook his head despondently and shrugged his shoulders in
a way which sent my hopes down to zero. "There is a very keen
competition for masterships, Mr. Weld," said he. "The vacancies are
few and the applicants innumerable. A first-class athlete, oar, or
cricketer, or a man who has passed very high in his examinations, can
usually find a vacancy--I might say always in the case of the
cricketer. But the average man--if you will excuse the description,
Mr. Weld--has a very great difficulty, almost an insurmountable
difficulty. We have already more than a hundred such names upon our
lists, and if you think it worth while our adding yours, I dare say
that in the course of some years we may possibly be able to find you
some opening which----"

He paused on account of a knock at the door. It was a clerk with a
note. Mr. Lumsden broke the seal and read it.

"Why, Mr. Weld," said he, "this is really rather an interesting
coincidence. I understand you to say that Latin and English are your
subjects, and that you would prefer for a time to accept a place in an
elementary establishment, where you would have time for private
study?"

"Quite so."

"This note contains a request from an old client of ours, Dr. Phelps
McCarthy, of Willow Lea House Academy, West Hampstead, that I should
at once send him a young man who should be qualified to teach Latin
and English to a small class of boys under fourteen years of age. His
vacancy appears to be the very one which you are looking for. The
terms are not munificent--sixty pounds, board, lodging, and
washing--but the work is not onerous, and you would have the evenings
to yourself."

"That would do," I cried, with all the eagerness of the man who sees
work at last after weary months of seeking.

"I don't know that it is quite fair to these gentlemen whose names
have been so long upon our list," said Mr. Lumsden, glancing down at
his open ledger. "But the coincidence is so striking that I feel we
must really give you the refusal of it."

"Then I accept it, sir, and I am much obliged to you."

"There is one small provision in Dr. McCarthy's letter. He stipulates
that the applicant must be a man with an imperturbably good temper."

"I am the very man," said I, with conviction.

"Well," said Mr. Lumsden, with some hesitation, "I hope that your
temper is really as good as you say, for I rather fancy that you may
need it."

"I presume that every elementary schoolmaster does."

"Yes, sir, but it is only fair to warn you that there may be some
especially trying circumstances in this particular situation. Dr.
Phelps McCarthy does not make such a condition without some very good
and pressing reason."

There was a certain solemnity in his speech which struck a chill in
the delight with which I had welcomed this providential vacancy.

"May I ask the nature of these circumstances?" I asked.

"We endeavour to hold the balance equally between all our clients, and
to be perfectly frank with all of them. If I knew of objections to you
I should certainly communicate them to Dr. McCarthy, and so I have no
hesitation in doing as much for you. I find," he continued, glancing
over the pages of his ledger, "that within the last twelve months we
have supplied no fewer than seven Latin masters to Willow Lea House
Academy, four of them having left so abruptly as to forfeit their
month's salary, and none of them having stayed more than eight weeks."

"And the other masters? Have they stayed?"

"There is only one other residential master, and he appears to be
unchanged. You can understand, Mr. Weld," continued the agent, closing
both the ledger and the interview, "that such rapid changes are not
desirable from a master's point of view, whatever may be said for them
by an agent working on commission. I have no idea why these gentlemen
have resigned their situations so early. I can only give you the
facts, and advise you to see Dr. McCarthy at once and to form your own
conclusions."

Great is the power of the man who has nothing to lose, and it was
therefore with perfect serenity, but with a good deal of curiosity,
that I rang, early that afternoon, the heavy, wrought-iron bell of the
Willow Lea House Academy. The building was a massive pile, square and
ugly, standing in its own extensive grounds, with a broad
carriage-sweep curving up to it from the road. It stood high, and
commanded a view on the one side of the grey roofs and bristling
spires of Northern London, and on the other of the well-wooded and
beautiful country which fringes the great city. The door was opened by
a boy in buttons, and I was shown into a well-appointed study, where
the principal of the academy presently joined me.

The warnings and insinuations of the agent had prepared me to meet a
choleric and overbearing person--one whose manner was an insupportable
provocation to those who worked under him. Anything further from the
reality cannot be imagined. He was a frail, gentle creature,
clean-shaven and round-shouldered, with a bearing which was so
courteous that it became almost deprecating. His bushy hair was
thickly shot with grey, and his age I should imagine to verge upon
sixty. His voice was low and suave, and he walked with a certain
mincing delicacy of manner. His whole appearance was that of a kindly
scholar, who was more at home among his books than in the practical
affairs of the world.

"I am sure that we shall be very happy to have your assistance, Mr.
Weld," said he, after a few professional questions. "Mr. Percival
Manners left me yesterday, and I should be glad if you could take over
his duties to-morrow."

"May I ask if that is Mr. Percival Manners of Selwyn?" I asked.

"Precisely. Did you know him?"

"Yes; he is a friend of mine."

"An excellent teacher, but a little hasty in his disposition. It was
his only fault. Now, in your case, Mr. Weld, is your own temper under
good control? Supposing, for argument's sake, that I were to so far
forget myself as to be rude to you, or to speak roughly, or to jar
your feelings in any way, could you rely upon yourself to control your
emotions?"

I smiled at the idea of this courteous, little, mincing creature
ruffling my nerves.

"I think that I could answer for it, sir," said I.

"Quarrels are very painful to me," said he. "I wish everyone to live
in harmony under my roof. I will not deny Mr. Percival Manners had
provocation, but I wish to find a man who can raise himself above
provocation, and sacrifice his own feelings for the sake of peace and
concord."

"I will do my best, sir."

"You cannot say more, Mr. Weld. In that case I shall expect you
to-night, if you can get your things ready so soon."

I not only succeeded in getting my things ready, but I found time to
call at the Benedict Club in Piccadilly, where I knew that I should
find Manners if he were still in town. There he was, sure enough, in
the smoking-room, and I questioned him, over a cigarette, as to his
reasons for throwing up his recent situation.

"You don't tell me that you are going to Dr. Phelps McCarthy's
Academy?" he cried, staring at me in surprise. "My dear chap, it's no
use. You can't possibly remain there."

"But I saw him, and he seemed the most courtly, inoffensive fellow. I
never met a man with more gentle manners."

"He! oh, he's all right. There's no vice in him. Have you seen
Theophilus St. James?"

"I have never heard the name. Who is he?"

"Your colleague. The other master."

"No, I have not seen him."

"/He's/ the terror. If you can stand him, you have either the spirit
of a perfect Christian or else you have no spirit at all. A more
perfect bounder never bounded."

"But why does McCarthy stand it?"

My friend looked at me significantly through his cigarette smoke, and
shrugged his shoulders.

"You will form your own conclusions about that. Mine were formed very
soon, and I never found occasion to alter them."

"It would help me very much if you would tell me them."

"When you see a man in his own house allowing his business to be
ruined, his comfort destroyed, and his authority defied by another man
in a subordinate position, and calmly submitting to it without so much
as a word of protest, what conclusion do you come to?"

"That the one has a hold over the other."

Percival Manners nodded his head.

"There you are! You've hit it first barrel. It seems to me that
there's no other explanation which will cover the facts. At some
period in his life the little Doctor has gone astray. /Humanum est
errare./ I have even done it myself. But this was something serious,
and the other man got a hold of it and has never let go. That's the
truth. Blackmail is at the bottom of it. But he had no hold over me,
and there was no reason why /I/ should stand his insolence, so I came
away--and I very much expect to see you do the same."

For some time he talked over the matter, but he always came to the
same conclusion--that I should not retain my new situation very long.

It was with no very pleasant feelings after this preparation that I
found myself face to face with the very man of whom I had received so
evil an account. Dr. McCarthy introduced us to each other in his study
on the evening of that same day immediately after my arrival at the
school.

"This is your new colleague, Mr. St. James," said he, in his genial,
courteous fashion. "I trust that you will mutually agree, and that I
shall find nothing but good feeling and sympathy beneath this roof."

I shared the good Doctor's hope, but my expectations of it were not
increased by the appearance of my /confrère/. He was a young,
bull-necked fellow about thirty years of age, dark-eyed and
black-haired, with an exceedingly vigorous physique. I have never seen
a more strongly built man, though he tended to run to fat in a way
which showed that he was in the worst of training. His face was
coarse, swollen, and brutal, with a pair of small, black eyes deeply
sunken in his head. His heavy jowl, his projecting ears, and his
thick, bandy legs all went to make up a personality which was as
formidable as it was repellent.

"I hear you've never been out before," said he, in a rude, brusque
fashion. "Well, it's a poor life; hard work and starvation pay, as
you'll find out for yourself."

"But it has some compensations," said the principal. "Surely you will
allow that, Mr. St. James?"

"Has it? I never could find them. What do you call compensations?"

"Even to be in the continual presence of youth is a privilege. It has
the effect of keeping youth in one's own soul, for one reflects
something of their high spirits and their keen enjoyment of life."

"Little beasts!" cried my colleague.

"Come, come, Mr. St. James, you are too hard upon them."

"I hate the sight of them! If I could put them and their blessed
copybooks and lexicons and slates into one bonfire I'd do it
to-night."

"This is Mr. St. James's way of talking," said the principal, smiling
nervously as he glanced at me. "You must not take him too seriously.
Now, Mr. Weld, you know where your room is, and no doubt you have your
own little arrangements to make. The sooner you make them the sooner
you will feel yourself at home."

It seemed to me that he was only too anxious to remove me at once from
the influence of this extraordinary colleague, and I was glad to go,
for the conversation had become embarrassing.

And so began an epoch which always seems to me as I look back to it to
be the most singular in all my experience. The school was in many ways
an excellent one. Dr. Phelps McCarthy was an ideal principal. His
methods were modern and rational. The management was all that could be
desired. And yet in the middle of this well-ordered machine there
intruded the incongruous and impossible Mr. St. James, throwing
everything into confusion. His duties were to teach English and
mathematics, and how he acquitted himself of them I do not know, as
our classes were held in separate rooms. I can answer for it, however,
that the boys feared him and loathed him, and I know that they had
good reason to do so, for frequently my own teaching was interrupted
by his bellowings of anger, and even by the sound of his blows. Dr.
McCarthy spent most of his time in his class, but it was, I suspect,
to watch over the master rather than the boys, and to try to moderate
his ferocious temper when it threatened to become dangerous.

It was in his bearing to the head master, however, that my colleague's
conduct was most outrageous. The first conversation which I have
recorded proved to be typical of their intercourse. He domineered over
him openly and brutally. I have heard him contradict him roughly
before the whole school. At no time would he show him any mark of
respect, and my temper often rose within me when I saw the quiet
acquiescence of the old Doctor, and his patient tolerance of this
monstrous treatment. And yet the sight of it surrounded the principal
also with a certain vague horror in my mind, for, supposing my
friend's theory to be correct--and I could devise no better one--how
black must have been the story which could be held over his head by
this man and, by fear of its publicity, force him to undergo such
humiliations. This quite, gentle Doctor might be a profound hypocrite,
a criminal, a forger possibly, or a poisoner. Only such a secret as
this could account for the complete power which the young man held
over him. Why else should he admit so hateful a presence into his
house and so harmful an influence into his school? Why should he
submit to degradations which could not be witnessed, far less endured,
without indignation?

And yet, if it were so, I was forced to confess that my principal
carried it off with extraordinary duplicity. Never by word or sign did
he show that the young man's presence was distasteful to him. I have
seen him look pained, it is true, after some peculiarly outrageous
exhibition, but he gave me the impression that it was always on
account of the scholars or of me, never on account of himself. He
spoke to and of St. James in an indulgent fashion, smiling gently at
what made my blood boil within me. In his way of looking at him and
addressing him, one could see no trace of resentment, but rather a
sort of timid and deprecating good will. His company he certainly
courted, and they spent many hours together in the study and the
garden.

As to my own relations with Theophilus St. James, I made up my mind
from the beginning that I should keep my temper with him, and to that
resolution I steadfastly adhered. If Dr. McCarthy chose to permit this
disrespect, and to condone these outrages, it was his affair and not
mine. It was evident that his one wish was that there should be peace
between us, and I felt that I could help him best by respecting this
desire. My easiest way to do so was to avoid my colleague, and this I
did to the best of my ability. When we were thrown together I was
quiet, polite and reserved. He, on his part, showed me no ill will,
but met me rather with a coarse joviality, and a rough familiarity
which he meant to be ingratiating. He was insistent in his attempts to
get me into his room at night, for the purpose of playing euchre and
of drinking.

"Old McCarthy doesn't mind," said he. "Don't you be afraid of him.
We'll do what we like, and I'll answer for it that he won't object."
Once only I went, and when I left, after a dull and gross evening, my
host was stretched dead drunk upon the sofa. After that I gave the
excuse of a course of study, and spent my spare hours alone in my own
room.

One point upon which I was anxious to gain information was as to how
long these proceedings had been going on. When did St. James assert
his hold over Dr. McCarthy? From neither of them could I learn how
long my colleague had been in his present situation. One or two
leading questions upon my part were eluded or ignored in a manner so
marked that it was easy to see that they were both of them as eager to
conceal the point as I was to know it. But at last, one evening, I had
the chance of a chat with Mrs. Carter, the matron--for the Doctor was
a widower--and from here I got the information which I wanted. It
needed no questioning to get at her knowledge, for she was so full of
indignation that she shook with passion as she spoke of it, and raised
her hands into the air in the earnestness of her denunciation, as she
described the grievances which she had against my colleague.

"It was three years ago, Mr. Weld, that he first darkened this
doorstep," she cried. "Three bitter years they have been to me. The
school had fifty boys then. Now it has twenty-two. That's what he has
done for us in three years. In another three there won't be one. And
the Doctor, that angel of patience, you see how he treats him, though
he is not fit to lace his boots for him. If it wasn't for the Doctor,
you may be sure that I wouldn't stay for an hour under the same roof
with such a man, and so I told him to his own face, Mr. Weld. If the
Doctor would only pack him about his business--but I know that I am
saying more than I should!" She stopped herself with an effort, and
spoke no more upon the subject. She had remembered that I was almost a
stranger in the school, and she feared that she had been indiscreet.

There were one or two very singular points about my colleague. The
chief one was that he rarely took any exercise. There was a
playing-field within the college grounds, and that was his farthest
point. If the boys went out, it was I or Dr. McCarthy who accompanied
them. St. James gave as a reason for this that he had injured his knee
some years before, and that walking was painful to him. For my own
part I put it down to pure laziness upon his part, for he was of an
obese, heavy temperament. Twice, however, I saw him from my window
stealing out of the grounds late at night, and the second time I
watched him return in the grey of the morning and slink in through an
open window. These furtive excursions were never alluded to, but they
exposed the hollowness of the story about his knee, and they increased
the dislike and distrust which I had of the man. His nature seemed to
be vicious to the core.

Another point, small but suggestive, was that he hardly ever during
the months that I was at Willow Lea House received any letters, and on
those few occasions they were obviously tradesmen's bills. I am an
early riser, and used every morning to pick my own correspondence out
of the bundle upon the hall table. I could judge, therefore, how few
were ever there for Mr. Theophilus St. James. There seemed to me to be
something peculiarly ominous in this. What sort of a man could he be
who during thirty years of life had never made a single friend, high
or low, who cared to continue to keep in touch with him? And yet the
sinister fact remained that the head master not only tolerated, but
was even intimate with him. More than once on entering a room I had
found them talking confidentially together, and they would walk arm in
arm in deep conversation up and down the garden paths. So curious did
I become to know what the tie was which bound them, that I found it
gradually push out my other interests and become the main purpose of
my life. In school and out of school, at meals and at play, I was
perpetually engaged in watching Dr. Phelps McCarthy and Mr. Theophilus
St. James, and in endeavouring to solve the mystery which surrounded
them.

But, unfortunately, my curiosity was a little too open. I had not the
art to conceal the suspicions which I felt about the relations which
existed between these two men and the nature of the hold which the one
appeared to have over the other. It may have been my manner of
watching them, it may have been some indiscreet question, but it is
certain that I showed too clearly what I felt. One night I was
conscious that the eyes of Theophilus St. James were fixed upon me in
a surly and menacing stare. I had a foreboding of evil, and I was not
surprised when Dr. McCarthy called me, next morning, into his study.

"I am very sorry, Mr. Weld," said he, "but I am afraid that I shall be
compelled to dispense with your services."

"Perhaps you would give me some reason for dismissing me," I answered,
for I was conscious of having done my duties to the best of my power,
and knew well that only one reason could be given.

"I have no fault to find with you," said he, and the colour came to
his cheeks.

"You send me away at the suggestion of my colleague."

His eyes turned away from mine.

"We will not discuss the question, Mr. Weld. It is impossible for me
to discuss it. In justice to you, I will give you the strongest
recommendation for your next situation. I can say no more. I hope that
you will continue your duties here until you have found a place
elsewhere."

My whole soul rose against the injustice of it, and yet I had no
appeal and no redress. I could only bow and leave the room, with a
bitter sense of ill-usage at my heart.

My first instinct was to pack my boxes and leave the house. But the
head master had given me permission to remain until I had found
another situation. I was sure that St. James desired me to go, and
that was a strong reason why I should stay. If my presence annoyed
him, I should give him as much of it as I could. I had begun to hate
him and to long to have my revenge upon him. If he had a hold over our
principal, might not I in turn obtain one over him? It was a sign of
weakness that he should be so afraid of my curiosity. He would not
resent it so much if he had not something to fear from it. I entered
my name once more upon the books of the agents, but meanwhile I
continued to fulfil my duties at Willow Lea House, and so it came
about that I was present at the /dénouement/ of this singular
situation.

During that week--for it was only a week before the crisis came--I was
in the habit of going down each evening, after the work of the day was
done, to inquire about my new arrangements. One night, it was a cold
and windy evening in March, I had just stepped out from the hall door
when a strange sight met my eyes. A man was crouching before one of
the windows of the house. His knees were bent and his eyes were fixed
upon the small line of light between the curtain and the sash. The
window threw a square of brightness in front of it, and in the middle
of this the dark shadow of this ominous visitor showed clear and hard.
It was but for an instant that I saw him, for he glanced up and was
off in a moment through the shrubbery. I could hear the patter of his
feet as he ran down the road, until it died away in the distance.

It was evidently my duty to turn back and to tell Dr. McCarthy what I
had seen. I found him in his study. I had expected him to be disturbed
at such an incident, but I was not prepared for the state of panic
into which he fell. He leaned back in his chair, white and gasping,
like one who has received a mortal blow.

"Which window, Mr. Weld?" he asked, wiping his forehead. "Which window
was it?"

"The next to the dining-room--Mr. St. James's window."

"Dear me! Dear me! This is, indeed, unfortunate! A man looking through
Mr. St. James's window!" He wrung his hands like a man who is at his
wits' end what to do.

"I shall be passing the police-station, sir. Would you wish me to
mention the matter?"

"No, no," he cried, suddenly, mastering his extreme agitation; "I have
no doubt that it was some poor tramp who intended to beg. I attach no
importance to the incident--none at all. Don't let me detain you, Mr.
Weld, if you wish to go out."

I left him sitting in his study with reassuring words upon his lips,
but with horror upon his face. My heart was heavy for my little
employer as I started off once more for town. As I looked back from
the gate at the square of light which marked the window of my
colleague, I suddenly saw the black outline of Dr. McCarthy's figure
passing against the lamp. He had hastened from his study, then, to
tell St. James what he had heard. What was the meaning of it all, this
atmosphere of mystery, this inexplicable terror, these confidences
between two such dissimilar men? I thought and thought as I walked,
but do what I would I could not hit upon any adequate conclusion. I
little knew how near I was to the solution of the problem.

It was very late--nearly twelve o'clock--when I returned, and the
lights were all out save one in the Doctor's study. The black, gloomy
house loomed before me as I walked up the drive, its sombre bulk
broken only by the one glimmering point of brightness. I let myself in
with my latch-key, and was about to enter my own room when my
attention was arrested by a short, sharp cry like that of a man in
pain. I stood and listened, my hand upon the handle of my door.

All was silent in the house save for a distant murmur of voices which
came, I knew, from the Doctor's room. I stole quietly down the
corridor in that direction. The sound resolved itself now into two
voices, the rough, bullying tones of St. James and the lower tone of
the Doctor, the one apparently insisting and the other arguing and
pleading. Four thin lines of light in the blackness showed me the door
of the Doctor's room, and step by step I drew nearer to it in the
darkness. St. James's voice within rose louder and louder, and his
words now came plainly to my ear.

"I'll have every pound of it. If you won't give it me I'll take it. Do
you hear?"

Dr. McCarthy's reply was inaudible, but the angry voice broke in
again.

"Leave you destitute! I leave you this little goldmine of a school,
and that's enough for one old man, is it not? How am I to set up in
Australia without money? Answer me that!"

Again the Doctor said something in a soothing voice, but his answer
only roused his companion to a higher pitch of fury.

"Done for me! What have you ever done for me except what you couldn't
help doing? It was for your good name, not for my safety, that you
cared. But enough cackle! I must get on my way before morning. Will
you open your safe or will you not?"

"Oh, James, how can you use me so?" cried a wailing voice, and then
there came a sudden little scream of pain. At the sound of that
helpless appeal from brutal violence I lost for once that temper upon
which I had prided myself. Every bit of manhood in me cried out
against any further neutrality. With my walking-cane in my hand I
rushed into the study. As I did so I was conscious that the hall-door
bell was violently ringing.

"You villain!" I cried, "let him go!"

The two men were standing in front of a small safe, which stood
against one wall of the Doctor's room. St. James held the old man by
the wrist, and he had twisted his arm round in order to force him to
produce the key. My little head master, white but resolute, was
struggling furiously in the grip of the burly athlete. The bully
glared over his shoulder at me with a mixture of fury and terror upon
his brutal features. Then, realizing that I was alone, he dropped his
victim and made for me with a horrible curse.

"You infernal spy!" he cried. "I'll do for you anyhow before I leave."

I am not a very strong man, and I realised that I was helpless if once
at close quarters. Twice I cut at him with my stick, but he rushed in
at me with a murderous growl, and seized me by the throat with both
his muscular hands. I fell backwards, and he on the top of me, with a
grip which was squeezing the life from me. I was conscious of his
malignant, yellow-tinged eyes within a few inches of my own, and then,
with a beating of pulses in my head and a singing in my ears, my
senses slipped away from me. But even in that supreme moment I was
aware that the door-bell was still violently ringing.

When I came to myself, I was lying upon the sofa in Dr. McCarthy's
study, and the Doctor himself was seated beside me. He appeared to be
watching me intently and anxiously, for as I opened my eyes and looked
about me he gave a great cry of relief. "Thank God!" he cried. "Thank
God!"

"Where is he?" I asked, looking round the room. As I did so, I became
aware that the furniture was scattered in every direction, and that
there were traces of an even more violent struggle than that in which
I had been engaged.

The Doctor sank his face between his hands.

"They have him," he groaned. "After these years of trial they have him
again. But how thankful I am that he has not for a second time stained
his hands in blood."

As the Doctor spoke I became aware that a man in the braided jacket of
an inspector of police was standing in the doorway.

"Yes, sir," he remarked, "you have had a pretty narrow escape. If we
had not got in when we did, you would not be here to tell the tale. I
don't know that I ever saw anyone much nearer to the undertaker."

I sat up with my hands to my throbbing head.

"Dr. McCarthy," said I, "this is all a mystery to me. I should be glad
if you could explain to me who this man is, and why you have tolerated
him so long in your house."

"I owe you an explanation, Mr. Weld--and the more so since you have,
in so chivalrous a fashion, almost sacrificed your life in my defence.
There is no reason now for secrecy. In a word, Mr. Weld, this unhappy
man's real name is James McCarthy, and he is my only son."

"Your son?"

"Alas, yes. What sin have I ever committed that I should have such a
punishment? He has made my whole life a misery from the first years of
his boyhood. Violent, headstrong, selfish, unprincipled, he has always
been the same. At eighteen he was a criminal. At twenty, in a paroxysm
of passion, he took the life of a boon companion and was tried for
murder. He only just escaped the gallows, and he was condemned to
penal servitude. Three years ago he succeeded in escaping, and
managed, in face of a thousand obstacles, to reach my house in London.
My wife's heart had been broken by his condemnation, and as he had
succeeded in getting a suit of ordinary clothes, there was no one here
to recognize him. For months he lay concealed in the attics until the
first search of the police should be over. Then I gave him employment
here, as you have seen, though by his rough and overbearing manners he
made my own life miserable, and that of his fellow-masters,
unbearable. You have been with us for four months, Mr. Weld, but no
other master endured him so long. I apologise now for all you have had
to submit to, but I ask you what else could I do? For his dead
mother's sake I could not let harm come to him as long as it was in my
power to fend it off. Only under my roof could he find a refuge--the
only spot in the world--and how could I keep him here without its
exciting remark unless I gave him some occupation? I made him English
master, therefore, and in that capacity I have protected him here for
three years. You have no doubt observed that he never, during the
daytime, went beyond the college grounds. But when to-night you came
to me with your report of a man who was looking through his window, I
understood that his retreat was at last discovered. I besought him to
fly at once, but he had been drinking, the unhappy fellow, and my
words fell upon deaf ears. When at last he made up his mind to go he
wished to take from me, in his flight, every shilling which I
possessed. It was your entrance which saved me from him, while the
police in turn arrived only just in time to rescue you. I have made
myself amenable to the law by harbouring an escaped prisoner, and
remain here in the custody of the inspector, but a prison has no
terrors for me after what I have endured in this house during the last
three years."

"It seems to me, Doctor," said the inspector, "that, if you have
broken the law, you have had quite enough punishment already!"

"God knows I have!" cried Dr. McCarthy, and sank his haggard face upon
his hands.



B. 24

I told my story when I was taken, and no one would listen to me. Then
I told it again at the trial--the whole thing absolutely as it
happened, without so much as a word added. I set it all out truly, so
help me God, all that Lady Mannering said and did, and then all that I
had said and done, just as it occurred. And what did I get for it?
"The prisoner put forward a rambling and inconsequential statement,
incredible in its details, and unsupported by any shred of
corroborative evidence." That was what one of the London papers said,
and others let it pass as if I had made no defence at all. And yet,
with my own eyes I saw Lord Mannering murdered, and I am as guiltless
of it as any man on the jury that tried me.

Now, sir, you are there to receive the petitions of prisoners. It all
lies with you. All I ask is that you read it--just read it--and then
that you make an inquiry or two about the private character of this
"lady" Mannering, if she still keeps the name that she had three years
ago, when to my sorrow and ruin I came to meet her. You could use a
private inquiry agent or a good lawyer, and you would soon learn
enough to show you that my story is the true one. Think of the glory
it would be to you to have all the papers saying that there would have
been a shocking miscarriage of justice if it had not been for your
perseverance and intelligence! That must be your reward, since I am a
poor man and can offer you nothing. But if you don't do it, may you
never lie easy in your bed again! May no night pass that you are not
haunted by the thought of the man who rots in gaol because you have
not done the duty which you are paid to do! But you will do it, sir, I
know. Just make one or two inquiries, and you will soon find which way
the wind blows. Remember, also, that the only person who profited by
the crime was herself, since it changed her from an unhappy wife to a
rich young widow. There's the end of the string in your hand, and you
only have to follow it up and see where it leads to.

Mind you, sir, I make no complaint as far as the burglary goes. I
don't whine about what I have deserved, and so far I have had no more
than I have deserved. Burglary it was, right enough, and my three
years have gone to pay for it. It was shown at the trial that I had
had a hand in the Merton Cross business, and did a year for that, so
my story had the less attention on that account. A man with a previous
conviction never gets a really fair trial. I own to the burglary, but
when it comes to the murder which brought me a lifer--any judge but
Sir James might have given me the gallows--then I tell you that I had
nothing to do with it, and that I am an innocent man. And now I'll
take that night, the 13th of September, 1894, and I'll give you just
exactly what occurred, and may God's hand strike me down if I go one
inch over the truth.

I had been at Bristol in the summer looking for work, and then I had a
notion that I might get something at Portsmouth, for I was trained as
a skilled mechanic, so I came tramping my way across the south of
England, and doing odd jobs as I went. I was trying all I knew to keep
off the cross, for I had done a year in Exeter Gaol, and I had had
enough of visiting Queen Victoria. But it's cruel hard to get work
when once the black mark is against your name, and it was all I could
do to keep soul and body together. At last, after ten days of
wood-cutting and stone-breaking on starvation pay, I found myself near
Salisbury with a couple of shillings in my pocket, and my boots and my
patience clean wore out. There's an ale-house called "The Willing
Mind," which stands on the road between Blandford and Salisbury, and
it was there, that night, I engaged a bed. I was sitting alone in the
tap-room just about closing time, when the inn-keeper--Allen his name
was--came beside me and began yarning about the neighbours. He was a
man that liked to talk and to have someone to listen to his talk, so I
sat there smoking and drinking a mug of ale which he had stood me; and
I took no great interest in what he said until he began to talk (as
the devil would have it) about the riches of Mannering Hall.

"Meaning the large house on the right before I came to the village?"
said I. "The one that stands in its own park?"

"Exactly," said he--and I am giving all our talk so that you may know
that I am telling you the truth and hiding nothing. "The long, white
house with the pillars," said he. "At the side of the Blandford Road."

Now I had looked at it as I passed, and it had crossed my mind, as
such thoughts will, that it was a very easy house to get into with
that great row of grand windows and glass doors. I had put the thought
away from me, and now here was this landlord bringing it back with his
talk about the riches within. I said nothing, but I listened, and as
luck would have it, he would always come back to this one subject.

"He was a miser young, so you can think what he is now in his age,"
said he. "Well, he's had some good out of his money."

"What good can he have had if he does not spend it?" said I.

"Well, it bought him the prettiest wife in England, and that was some
good that he got out of it. She thought she would have the spending of
it, but she knows the difference now."

"Who was she then?" I asked, just for the sake of something to say.

"She was nobody at all until the old Lord made her his Lady," said he.
"She came from up London way, and some said that she had been on the
stage there, but nobody knew. The old Lord was away for a year, and
when he came home he brought a young wife back with him, and there she
has been ever since. Stephens, the butler, did tell me once that she
was the light of the house when first she came, but what with her
husband's mean and aggravatin' way, and what with her loneliness--for
he hates to see a visitor within his doors; and what with his bitter
words--for he has a tongue like a hornet's sting--her life all went
out of her, and she became a white, silent creature, moping about the
country lanes. Some say that she loved another man, and that it was
just the riches of the old Lord which tempted her to be false to her
lover, and that now she is eating her heart out because she has lost
the one without being any nearer to the other, for she might be the
poorest woman in the parish for all the money that she has the
handling of."

Well, sir, you can imagine that it did not interest me very much to
hear about the quarrels between a Lord and a Lady. What did it matter
to me if she hated the sound of his voice, or if he put every
indignity upon her in the hope of breaking her spirit, and spoke to
her as he would never have dared to speak to one of his servants? The
landlord told me of these things, and of many more like them, but they
passed out of my mind, for they were no concern of mine. But what I
did want to hear was the form in which Lord Mannering kept his riches.
Title-deeds and stock certificates are but paper, and more danger than
profit to the man who takes them. But metal and stones are worth a
risk. And then, as if he were answering my very thoughts, the landlord
told me of Lord Mannering's great collection of gold medals, that it
was the most valuable in the world, and that it was reckoned that if
they were put into a sack the strongest man in the parish would not be
able to raise them. Then his wife called him, and he and I went to our
beds.

I am not arguing to make out a case for myself, but I beg you, sir, to
bear all the facts in your mind, and to ask yourself whether a man
could be more sorely tempted than I was. I make bold to say that there
are few who could have held out against it. There I lay on my bed that
night, a desperate man without hope or work, and with my last shilling
in my pocket. I had tried to be honest, and honest folk had turned
their backs upon me. They taunted me for theft; and yet they pushed me
towards it. I was caught in the stream and could not get out. And then
it was such a chance: the great house all lined with windows, the
golden medals which could so easily be melted down. It was like
putting a loaf before a starving man and expecting him not to eat it.
I fought against it for a time, but it was no use. At last I sat up on
the side of my bed, and I swore that that night I should either be a
rich man and able to give up crime for ever, or that the irons should
be on my wrists once more. Then I slipped on my clothes, and, having
put a shilling on the table--for the landlord had treated me well, and
I did not wish to cheat him--I passed out through the window into the
garden of the inn.

There was a high wall round this garden, and I had a job to get over
it, but once on the other side it was all plain sailing. I did not
meet a soul upon the road, and the iron gate of the avenue was open.
No one was moving at the lodge. The moon was shining, and I could see
the great house glimmering white through an archway of trees. I walked
up it for a quarter of a mile or so, until I was at the edge of the
drive, where it ended in a broad, gravelled space before the main
door. There I stood in the shadow and looked at the long building,
with a full moon shining in every window and silvering the high, stone
front. I crouched there for some time, and I wondered where I should
find the easiest entrance. The corner window of the side seemed to be
the one which was least overlooked, and a screen of ivy hung heavily
over it. My best chance was evidently there. I worked my way under the
trees to the back of the house, and then crept along in the black
shadow of the building. A dog barked and rattled his chain, but I
stood waiting until he was quiet, and then I stole on once more until
I came to the window which I had chosen.

It is astonishing how careless they are in the country, in places far
removed from large towns, where the thought of burglars never enters
their heads. I call it setting temptation in a poor man's way when he
puts his hand, meaning no harm, upon a door, and finds it swing open
before him. In this case it was not so bad as that, but the window was
merely fastened with the ordinary catch, which I opened with a push
from the blade of my knife. I pulled up the window as quickly as
possible, then I thrust the knife through the slit in the shutter and
prized it open. They were folding shutters, and I shoved them before
me and walked into the room.

"Good evening, sir! You are very welcome!" said a voice.

I've had some starts in my life, but never one to come up to that one.
There, in the opening of the shutters, within reach of my arm, was
standing a woman with a small coil of wax taper burning in her hand.
She was tall and straight and slender, with a beautiful, white face
that might have been cut out of clear marble, but her hair and eyes
were as black as night. She was dressed in some sort of white
dressing-gown which flowed down to her feet, and what with this robe
and what with her face, it seemed as if a spirit from above was
standing in front of me. My knees knocked together, and I held on to
the shutter with one hand to give me support. I should have turned and
run away if I had had the strength, but I could only just stand and
stare at her.

She soon brought me back to myself once more.

"Don't be frightened!" said she, and they were strange words for the
mistress of a house to have to use to a burglar. "I saw you out of my
bedroom window when you were hiding under those trees, so I slipped
downstairs, and then I heard you at the window. I should have opened
it for you if you had waited, but you managed it yourself just as I
came up."

I still held in my hand the long clasp-knife with which I had opened
the shutter. I was unshaven and grimed from a week on the roads.
Altogether, there are few people who would have cared to face me alone
at one in the morning; but this woman, if I had been her lover meeting
her by appointment, could not have looked upon me with a more
welcoming eye. She laid her hand upon my sleeve and drew me into the
room.

"What's the meaning of this, ma'am? Don't get trying any little games
upon me," said I, in my roughest way--and I can put it on rough when I
like. "It'll be the worse for you if you play me any trick," I added,
showing her my knife.

"I will play you no trick," said she. "On the contrary, I am your
friend, and I wish to help you."

"Excuse me, ma'am, but I find it hard to believe that," said I. "Why
should you wish to help me?"

"I have my own reasons," said she; and then suddenly with those black
eyes blazing out of her white face: "It's because I hate him, hate
him, hate him! Now you understand."

I remembered what the landlord had told me, and I did understand. I
looked at her Ladyship's face, and I knew that I could trust her. She
wanted to revenge herself upon her husband. She wanted to hit him
where it would hurt him most--upon the pocket. She hated him so that
she would even lower her pride to take such a man as me into her
confidence if she could gain her end by doing so. I've hated some folk
in my time, but I don't think I ever understood what hate was until I
saw that woman's face in the light of the taper.

"You'll trust me now?" said she, with another coaxing touch upon my
sleeve.

"Yes, your Ladyship."

"You know me, then?"

"I can guess who you are."

"I dare say my wrongs are the talk of the county. But what does he
care for that? He only cares for one thing in the whole world, and
that you can take from him this night. Have you a bag?"

"No, your Ladyship."

"Shut the shutter behind you. Then no one can see the light. You are
quite safe. The servants all sleep in the other wing. I can show you
where all the most valuable things are. You cannot carry them all, so
we must pick the best."

The room in which I found myself was long and low, with many rugs and
skins scattered about on a polished wood floor. Small cases stood here
and there, and the walls were decorated with spears and swords and
paddles, and other things which find their way into museums. There
were some queer clothes, too, which had been brought from savage
countries, and the lady took down a large leather sack-bag from among
them.

"This sleeping-sack will do," said she. "Now come with me and I will
show you where the medals are."

It was like a dream to me to think that this tall, white woman was the
lady of the house, and that she was lending me a hand to rob her own
home. I could have burst out laughing at the thought of it, and yet
there was something in that pale face of hers which stopped my
laughter and turned me cold and serious. She swept on in front of me
like a spirit, with the green taper in her hand, and I walked behind
with my sack until we came to a door at the end of this museum. It was
locked, but the key was in it, and she led me through.

The room beyond was a small one, hung all round with curtains which
had pictures on them. It was the hunting of a deer that was painted on
it, as I remember, and in the flicker of that light you'd have sworn
that the dogs and the horses were streaming round the walls. The only
other thing in the room was a row of cases made of walnut, with brass
ornaments. They had glass tops, and beneath this glass I saw the long
lines of those gold medals, some of them as big as a plate and half an
inch thick, all resting upon red velvet and glowing and gleaming in
the darkness. My fingers were just itching to be at them, and I
slipped my knife under the lock of one of the cases to wrench it open.

"Wait a moment," said she, laying her hand upon my arm. "You might do
better than this."

"I am very well satisfied, ma'am," said I, "and much obliged to your
Ladyship for kind assistance."

"You can do better," she repeated. "Would not golden sovereigns be
worth more to you than these things?"

"Why, yes," said I. "That's best of all."

"Well," said she. "He sleeps just above our head. It is but one short
staircase. There is a tin box with money enough to fill this bag under
his bed."

"How can I get it without waking him?"

"What matter if he does wake?" She looked very hard at me as she
spoke. "You could keep him from calling out."

"No, no, ma'am, I'll have none of that."

"Just as you like," said she. "I thought that you were a stout-hearted
sort of man by your appearance, but I see that I made a mistake. If
you are afraid to run the risk of one old man, then of course you
cannot have the gold which is under his bed. You are the best judge of
your own business, but I should think that you would do better at some
other trade."

"I'll not have murder on my conscience."

"You could overpower him without harming him. I never said anything
about murder. The money lies under the bed. But if you are
faint-hearted, it is better that you should not attempt it."

She worked upon me so, partly with her scorn and partly with this
money that she held before my eyes, that I believe I should have
yielded and taken my chances upstairs, had it not been that I saw her
eyes following the struggle within me in such a crafty, malignant
fashion, that it was evident she was bent upon making me the tool of
her revenge, and that she would leave me no choice but to do the old
man an injury or to be captured by him. She felt suddenly that she was
giving herself away, and she changed her face to a kindly, friendly
smile, but it was too late, for I had had my warning.

"I will not go upstairs," said I. "I have all I want here."

She looked her contempt at me, and there never was a face which could
make it plainer.

"Very good. You can take these medals. I should be glad if you would
begin at this end. I suppose they will all be the same value when
melted down, but these are the ones which are the rarest, and,
therefore, the most precious to him. It is not necessary to break the
locks. If you press that brass knob you will find that there is a
secret spring. So! Take that small one first--it is the very apple of
his eye."

She had opened one of the cases, and the beautiful things all lay
exposed before me. I had my hand upon the one which she had pointed
out, when suddenly a change came over her face, and she held up one
finger as a warning. "Hist!" she whispered. "What is that?"

Far away in the silence of the house we heard a low, dragging,
shuffling sound, and the distant tread of feet. She closed and
fastened the case in an instant.

"It's my husband!" she whispered. "All right. Don't be alarmed. I'll
arrange it. Here! Quick, behind the tapestry!"

She pushed me behind the painted curtains upon the wall, my empty
leather bag still in my hand. Then she took her taper and walked
quickly into the room from which we had come. From where I stood I
could see her through the open door.

"Is that you, Robert?" she cried.

The light of a candle shone through the door of the museum, and the
shuffling steps came nearer and nearer. Then I saw a face in the
doorway, a great, heavy face, all lines and creases, with a huge,
curving nose, and a pair of gold glasses fixed across it. He had to
throw his head back to see through the glasses, and that great nose
thrust out in front of him like the beak of some sort of fowl. He was
a big man, very tall and burly, so that in his loose dressing-gown his
figure seemed to fill up the whole doorway. He had a pile of grey,
curling hair all round his head, but his face was clean-shaven. His
mouth was thin and small and prim, hidden away under his long,
masterful nose. He stood there, holding the candle in front of him,
and looking at his wife with a queer, malicious gleam in his eyes. It
only needed that one look to tell me that he was as fond of her as she
was of him.

"How's this?" he asked. "Some new tantrum? What do you mean by
wandering about the house? Why don't you go to bed?"

"I could not sleep," she answered. She spoke languidly and wearily. If
she was an actress once, she had not forgotten her calling.

"Might I suggest," said he, in the same mocking kind of voice, "that a
good conscience is an excellent aid to sleep?"

"That cannot be true," she answered, "for you sleep very well."

"I have only one thing in my life to be ashamed of," said he, and his
hair bristled up with anger until he looked like an old cockatoo. "You
know best what that is. It is a mistake which has brought its own
punishment with it."

"To me as well as to you. Remember that!"

"You have very little to whine about. It was I who stooped and you who
rose."

"Rose!"

"Yes, rose. I suppose you do not deny that it is a promotion to
exchange the music-hall for Mannering Hall. Fool that I was ever to
take you out of your true sphere!"

"If you think so, why do you not separate?"

"Because private misery is better than public humiliation. Because it
is easier to suffer for a mistake than to own to it. Because also I
like to keep you in my sight, and to know that you cannot go back to
him."

"You villain! You cowardly villain!"

"Yes, yes, my lady. I know your secret ambition, but it shall never be
while I live, and if it happens after my death I will at least take
care that you go to him as a beggar. You and dear Edward will never
have the satisfaction of squandering my savings, and you may make up
your mind to that, my lady. Why are those shutters and the window
open?"

"I found the night very close."

"It is not safe. How do you know that some tramp may not be outside?
Are you aware that my collection of medals is worth more than any
similar collection in the world? You have left the door open also.
What is there to prevent anyone from rifling the cases?"

"I was here."

"I know you were. I heard you moving about in the medal room, and that
was why I came down. What were you doing?"

"Looking at the medals. What else should I be doing?"

"This curiosity is something new." He looked suspiciously at her and
moved on towards the inner room, she walking beside him.

It was at this moment that I saw something which startled. I had laid
my clasp-knife open upon the top of one of the cases, and there it lay
in full view. She saw it before he did, and with a woman's cunning she
held her taper out so that the light of it came between Lord
Mannering's eyes and the knife. Then she took it with her left hand
and held it against her gown out of his sight. He looked about from
case to case--I could have put my hand at one time upon his long
nose--but there was nothing to show that the medals had been tampered
with, and so, still snarling and grumbling, he shuffled off into the
other room once more.

And now I have to speak of what I heard rather than of what I saw, but
I swear to you, as I shall stand some day before my Maker, that what I
say is the truth.

When they passed into the outer room I saw him lay his candle upon the
corner of one of the tables, and he sat himself down, but in such a
position that he was just out of my sight. She moved behind him, as I
could tell from the fact that the light of her taper threw his long,
lumpy shadow upon the floor in front of him. Then he began talking
about this man whom he called Edward, and every word that he said was
like a blistering drop of vitriol. He spoke low, so that I could not
hear it all, but from what I heard I should guess that she would as
soon have been lashed with a whip. At first she said some hot words in
reply, but then she was silent, and he went on and on in that cold,
mocking voice of his, nagging and insulting and tormenting, until I
wondered that she could bear to stand there in silence and listen to
it. Then suddenly I heard him say in a sharp voice, "Come from behind
me! Leave go of my collar! What! would you dare to strike me?" There
was a sound like a blow, just a soft sort of thud, and then I heard
him cry out, "My God, it's blood!" He shuffled with his feet as if he
was getting up, and then I heard another blow, and he cried out, "Oh,
you she-devil!" and was quiet, except for a dripping and splashing
upon the floor.

I ran out from behind my curtain at that, and rushed into the other
room, shaking all over with the horror of it. The old man had slipped
down in the chair, and his dressing-gown had rucked up until he looked
as if he had a monstrous hump to his back. His head, with the gold
glasses still fixed on his nose, was lolling over upon one side, and
his little mouth was open just like a dead fish. I could not see where
the blood was coming from, but I could still hear it drumming upon the
floor. She stood behind him with the candle shining full upon her
face. Her lips were pressed together and her eyes shining, and a touch
of colour had come into each of her cheeks. It just wanted that to
make her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.

"You've done it now!" said I.

"Yes," said she, in her quiet way, "I've done it now."

"What are you going to do?" I asked. "They'll have you for murder as
sure as fate."

"Never fear about me. I have nothing to live for, and it does not
matter. Give me a hand to set him straight in the chair. It is
horrible to see him like this!"

I did so, though it turned me cold all over to touch him. Some of his
blood came on my hand and sickened me.

"Now," said she, "you may as well have the medals as anyone else. Take
them and go."

"I don't want them. I only want to get away. I was never mixed up with
a business like this before."

"Nonsense!" said she. "You came for the medals, and here they are at
your mercy. Why should you not have them? There is no one to prevent
you."

I held the bag still in my hand. She opened the case, and between us
we threw a hundred or so of the medals into it. They were all from the
one case, but I could not bring myself to wait for any more. Then I
made for the window, for the very air of this house seemed to poison
me after what I had seen and heard. As I looked back, I saw her
standing there, tall and graceful, with the light in her hand, just as
I had seen her first. She waved good-bye, and I waved back at her and
sprang out into the gravel drive.

I thank God that I can lay my hand upon my heart and say that I have
never done a murder, but perhaps it would be different if I had been
able to read that woman's mind and thoughts. There might have been two
bodies in the room instead of one if I could have seen behind that
last smile of hers. But I thought of nothing but of getting safely
away, and it never entered my head how she might be fixing the rope
round my neck. I had not taken five steps out from the window skirting
down the shadow of the house in the way that I had come, when I heard
a scream that might have raised the parish, and then another and
another.

"Murder!" she cried. "Murder! Murder! Help!" and her voice rang out in
the quiet of the night-time and sounded over the whole country-side.
It went through my head, that dreadful cry. In an instant lights began
to move and windows to fly up, not only in the house behind me, but at
the lodge and in the stables in front. Like a frightened rabbit I
bolted down the drive, but I heard the clang of the gate being shut
before I could reach it. Then I hid my bag of medals under some dry
fagots, and I tried to get away across the park, but someone saw me in
the moonlight, and presently I had half a dozen of them with dogs upon
my heels. I crouched down among the brambles, but those dogs were too
many for me, and I was glad enough when the men came up and prevented
me from being torn into pieces. They seized me, and dragged me back to
the room from which I had come.

"Is this the man, your Ladyship?" asked the oldest of them--the same
whom I found out afterwards to be the butler.

She had been bending over the body, with her handkerchief to her eyes,
and now she turned upon me with the face of a fury. Oh, what an
actress that woman was!

"Yes, yes, it is the very man," she cried. "Oh, you villain, you cruel
villain, to treat an old man so!"

There was a man there who seemed to be a village constable. He laid
his hand upon my shoulder.

"What do you say to that?" said he.

"It was she who did it," I cried, pointing at the woman, whose eyes
never flinched before mine.

"Come! come! Try another!" said the constable, and one of the
men-servants struck at me with his fist.

"I tell you that I saw her do it. She stabbed him twice with a knife.
She first helped me to rob him, and then she murdered him."

The footman tried to strike me again, but she held up her hand.

"Do not hurt him," said she. "I think that his punishment may safely
be left to the law."

"I'll see to that, your Ladyship," said the constable. "Your Ladyship
actually saw the crime committed, did you not?"

"Yes, yes, I saw it with my own eyes. It was horrible. We heard the
noise and we came down. My poor husband was in front. The man had one
of the cases in his hand. He rushed past us, and my husband seized
him. There was a struggle, and he stabbed him twice. There you can see
the blood upon his hands. If I am not mistaken, his knife is still in
Lord Mannering's body."

"Look at the blood upon her hands!" I cried.

"She has been holding up his Lordship's head, you lying rascal," said
the butler.

"And here's the very sack her Ladyship spoke of," said the constable,
as a groom came in with the one which I had dropped in my flight. "And
here are the medals inside it. That's good enough for me. We will keep
him safe here to-night, and to-morrow the inspector and I can take him
into Salisbury."

"Poor creature," said the woman. "For my own part, I forgive him any
injury which he has done me. Who knows what temptation may have driven
him to crime? His conscience and the law will give him punishment
enough without any reproach of mine rendering it more bitter."

I could not answer--I tell you, sir, I could not answer, so taken
aback was I by the assurance of the woman. And so, seeming by my
silence to agree to all that she had said, I was dragged away by the
butler and the constable into the cellar, in which they looked me for
the night.

There, sir, I have told you the whole story of the events which led up
the murder of Lord Mannering by his wife upon the night of September
the 14th, in the year 1894. Perhaps you will put my statement on one
side as the constable did at Mannering Towers, or the judge afterwards
at the county assizes. Or perhaps you will see that there is the ring
of truth in what I say, and you will follow it up, and so make your
name for ever as a man who does not grudge personal trouble where
justice is to be done. I have only you to look to, sir, and if you
will clear my name of this false accusation, then I will worship you
as one man never yet worshipped another. But if you fail me, then I
give you my solemn promise that I will rope myself up, this day month,
to the bar of my window, and from that time on I will come to plague
you in your dreams if ever yet one man was able to come back and haunt
another. What I ask you to do is very simple. Make inquiries about
this woman, watch her, learn her past history, find out what use she
is making of the money which has come to her, and whether there is not
a man Edward as I have stated. If from all this you learn anything
which shows you her real character, or which seems to you to
corroborate the story which I have told you, then I am sure that I can
rely upon your goodness of heart to come to the rescue of an innocent
man.



THE GREAT KEINPLATZ EXPERIMENT

Of all the sciences which have puzzled the sons of men, none had such
an attraction for the learned Professor von Baumgarten as those which
relate to psychology and the ill-defined relations between mind and
matter. A celebrated anatomist, a profound chemist, and one of the
first physiologists in Europe, it was a relief for him to turn from
these subjects and to bring his varied knowledge to bear upon the
study of the soul and the mysterious relationship of spirits. At
first, when as a young man he began to dip into the secrets of
mesmerism, his mind seemed to be wandering in a strange land where all
was chaos and darkness, save that here and there some great
unexplainable and disconnected fact loomed out in front of him. As the
years passed, however, and as the worthy Professor's stock of
knowledge increased, for knowledge begets knowledge as money bears
interest, much which had seemed strange and unaccountable began to
take another shape in his eyes. New trains of reasoning became
familiar to him, and he perceived connecting links where all had been
incomprehensible and startling. By experiments which extended over
twenty years, he obtained a basis of facts upon which it was his
ambition to build up a new, exact science which should embrace
mesmerism, spiritualism, and all cognate subjects. In this he was much
helped by his intimate knowledge of the more intricate parts of animal
physiology which treat of nerve currents and the working of the brain;
for Alexis von Baumgarten was Regius Professor of Physiology at the
University of Keinplatz, and had all the resources of the laboratory
to aid him in his profound researches.

Professor von Baumgarten was tall and thin, with a hatchet face and
steel-grey eyes, which were singularly bright and penetrating. Much
thought had furrowed his forehead and contracted his heavy eyebrows,
so that he appeared to wear a perpetual frown, which often misled
people as to his character, for though austere he was tender-hearted.
He was popular among the students, who would gather round him after
his lectures and listen eagerly to his strange theories. Often he
would call for volunteers amongst them in order to conduct some
experiment, so that eventually there was hardly a lad in the class who
had not, at one time or another, been thrown into a mesmeric trance by
his Professor.

Of all these young devotees of science there was none who equalled in
enthusiasm Fritz von Hartmann. It had often seemed strange to his
fellow-students that wild, reckless Fritz, as dashing a young fellow
as ever hailed from the Rhinelands, should devote the time and trouble
which he did in reading up abstruse works and in assisting the
Professor in his strange experiments. The fact was, however, that
Fritz was a knowing and long-headed fellow. Months before he had lost
his heart to young Elsie, the blue-eyed, yellow-haired daughter of the
lecturer. Although he had succeeded in learning from her lips that she
was not indifferent to his suit, he had never dared to announce
himself to her family as a formal suitor. Hence he would have found it
a difficult matter to see his young lady had he not adopted the
expedient of making himself useful to the Professor. By this means he
frequently was asked to the old man's house, where he willingly
submitted to be experimented upon in any way as long as there was a
chance of his receiving one bright glance from the eyes of Elise or
one touch of her little hand.

Young Fritz von Hartmann was a handsome lad enough. There were broad
acres, too, which would descend to him when his father died. To many
he would have seemed an eligible suitor; but Madame frowned upon his
presence in the house, and lectured the Professor at times on his
allowing such a wolf to prowl around their lamb. To tell the truth,
Fritz had an evil name in Keinplatz. Never was there a riot or a duel,
or any other mischief afoot, but the young Rhinelander figured as a
ringleader in it. No one used more free and violent language, no one
drank more, no one played cards more habitually, no one was more idle,
save in the one solitary subject. No wonder, then, that the good Frau
Professorin gathered her Fräulein under her wing, and resented the
attentions of such a /mauvais sujet/. As to the worthy lecturer, he
was too much engrossed by his strange studies to form an opinion upon
the subject one way or the other.

For many years there was one question which had continually obtruded
itself upon his thoughts. All his experiments and his theories turned
upon a single point. A hundred times a day the Professor asked himself
whether it was possible for the human spirit to exist apart from the
body for a time and then to return to it once again. When the
possibility first suggested itself to him his scientific mind had
revolted from it. It clashed too violently with preconceived ideas and
the prejudices of his early training. Gradually, however, as he
proceeded farther and farther along the pathway of original research,
his mind shook off its old fetters and became ready to face any
conclusion which could reconcile the facts. There were many things
which made him believe that it was possible for mind to exist apart
from matter. At last it occurred to him that by a daring and original
experiment the question might be definitely decided.

"It is evident," he remarked in his celebrated article upon invisible
entities, which appeared in the /Keinplatz wochenliche Medicalschrift/
about this time, and which surprised the whole scientific world--"it
is evident that under certain conditions the soul or mind does
separate itself from the body. In the case of a mesmerised person, the
body lies in a cataleptic condition, but the spirit has left it.
Perhaps you reply that the soul is there, but in a dormant condition.
I answer that this is not so, otherwise how can one account for the
condition of clairvoyance, which has fallen into disrepute through the
knavery of certain scoundrels, but which can easily be shown to be an
undoubted fact. I have been able myself, with a sensitive subject, to
obtain an accurate description of what was going on in another room or
another house. How can such knowledge be accounted for on any
hypothesis save that the soul of the subject has left the body and is
wandering through space? For a moment it is recalled by the voice of
the operator and says what it has seen, and then wings its way once
more through the air. Since the spirit is by its very nature
invisible, we cannot see these comings and goings, but we see their
effect in the body of the subject, now rigid and inert, now struggling
to narrate impressions which could never have come to it by natural
means. There is only one way which I can see by which the fact can be
demonstrated. Although we in the flesh are unable to see these
spirits, yet our own spirits, could we separate them from the body,
would be conscious of the presence of others. It is my intention,
therefore, shortly to mesmerise one of my pupils. I shall then
mesmerise myself in a manner which has become easy to me. After that,
if my theory holds good, my spirit will have no difficulty in meeting
and communing with the spirit of my pupil, both being separated from
the body. I hope to be able to communicate the result of this
interesting experiment in an early number of the /Keinplatz
wochenliche Medicalschrift/."

When the good Professor finally fulfilled his promise, and published
an account of what occurred, the narrative was so extraordinary that
it was received with general incredulity. The tone of some of the
papers was so offensive in their comments upon the matter that the
angry savant declared that he would never open his mouth again or
refer to the subject in any way--a promise which he has faithfully
kept. This narrative has been compiled, however, from the most
authentic sources, and the events cited in it may be relied upon as
substantially correct.

It happened, then, that shortly after the time when Professor von
Baumgarten conceived the idea of the above-mentioned experiment, he
was walking thoughtfully homewards after a long day in the laboratory,
when he met a crowd of roistering students who had just streamed out
from a beer-house. At the head of them, half-intoxicated and very
noisy, was young Fritz von Hartmann. The Professor would have passed
them, but his pupil ran across and intercepted him.

"Heh! my worthy master," he said, taking the old man by the sleeve,
and leading him down the road with him. "There is something that I
have to say to you, and it is easier for me to say it now, when the
good beer is humming in my head, than at another time."

"What is it, then, Fritz?" the physiologist asked, looking at him in
mild surprise.

"I hear, mein herr, that you are about to do some wondrous experiment
in which you hope to take a man's soul out of his body, and then to
put it back again. Is it not so?"

"It is true, Fritz."

"And have you considered, my dear sir, that you may have some
difficulty in finding someone on whom to try this? Potztausend!
Suppose that the soul went out and would not come back. That would be
a bad business. Who is to take the risk?"

"But Fritz," the Professor cried, very much startled by this view of
the matter, "I had relied upon your assistance in the attempt. Surely
you will not desert me. Consider the honour and glory."

"Consider the fiddlesticks!" the student cried angrily. "Am I to be
paid always thus? Did I not stand two hours upon a glass insulator
while you poured electricity into my body? Have you not stimulated my
phrenic nerves, besides ruining my digestion with a galvanic current
round my stomach? Four-and-thirty times you have mesmerised me, and
what have I got from all this? Nothing. And now you wish to take my
soul out, as you would take the works from a watch. It is more than
flesh and blood can stand."

"Dear, dear!" the Professor cried in great distress. "That is very
true, Fritz. I never thought of it before. If you can but suggest how
I can compensate you, you will find me ready and willing."

"Then listen," said Fritz solemnly. "If you will pledge your word that
after this experiment I may have the hand of your daughter, then I am
willing to assist you; but if not, I shall have nothing to do with it.
These are my only terms."

"And what would my daughter say to this?" the Professor exclaimed,
after a pause of astonishment.

"Elise would welcome it," the young man replied. "We have loved each
other long."

"Then she shall be yours," the physiologist said with decision, "for
you are a good-hearted young man, and one of the best neurotic
subjects that I have ever known--that is when you are not under the
influence of alcohol. My experiment is to be performed upon the fourth
of next month. You will attend at the physiological laboratory at
twelve o'clock. It will be a great occasion, Fritz. Von Gruben is
coming from Jena, and Hinterstein from Basle. The chief men of science
of all South Germany will be there."

"I shall be punctual," the student said briefly; and so the two
parted. The Professor plodded homeward, thinking of the great coming
event, while the young man staggered along after his noisy companions,
with his mind full of the blue-eyed Elise, and of the bargain which he
had concluded with her father.

The Professor did not exaggerate when he spoke of the widespread
interest excited by his novel psychological experiment. Long before
the hour had arrived the room was filled by a galaxy of talent.
Besides the celebrities whom he had mentioned, there had come from
London the great Professor Lurcher, who had just established his
reputation by a remarkable treatise upon cerebral centres. Several
great lights of the Spiritualistic body had also come a long distance
to be present, as had a Swedenborgian minister, who considered that
the proceedings might throw some light upon the doctrines of the Rosy
Cross.

There was considerable applause from this eminent assembly upon the
appearance of Professor von Baumgarten and his subject upon the
platform. The lecturer, in a few well-chosen words, explained what his
views were, and how he proposed to test them. "I hold," he said, "that
when a person is under the influence of mesmerism, his spirit is for
the time released from his body, and I challenge anyone to put forward
any other hypothesis which will account for the fact of clairvoyance.
I therefore hope that upon mesmerising my young friend here, and then
putting myself into a trance, our spirits may be able to commune
together, though our bodies lie still and inert. After a time nature
will resume her sway, our spirits will return into our respective
bodies, and all will be as before. With your kind permission, we shall
now proceed to attempt the experiment."

The applause was renewed at this speech, and the audience settled down
in expectant silence. With a few rapid passes the Professor mesmerised
the young man, who sank back in his chair, pale and rigid. He then
took a bright globe of glass from his pocket, and by concentrating his
gaze upon it and making a strong mental effort, he succeeded in
throwing himself into the same condition. It was a strange and
impressive sight to see the old man and the young sitting together in
the same cataleptic condition. Whither, then, had their souls fled?
That was the question which presented itself to each and every one of
the spectators.

Five minutes passed, and then ten, and then fifteen, and then fifteen
more, while the Professor and his pupil sat stiff and stark upon the
platform. During that time not a sound was heard from the assembled
savants, but every eye was bent upon the two pale faces, in search of
the first signs of returning consciousness. Nearly an hour had elapsed
before the patient watchers were rewarded. A faint flush came back to
the cheeks of Professor von Baumgarten. The soul was coming back once
more to its earthly tenement. Suddenly he stretched out his long, thin
arms, as one awaking from sleep, and rubbing his eyes, stood up from
his chair and gazed about him as though he hardly realised where he
was. "Tausend Teufel!" he exclaimed, rapping out a tremendous South
German oath, to the great astonishment of his audience and to the
disgust of the Swedenborgian.

"Where the Henker am I then, and what in thunder has occurred? Oh yes,
I remember now. One of these nonsensical mesmeric experiments. There
is no result this time, for I remember nothing at all since I became
unconscious; so you have had all your long journeys for nothing, my
learned friends, and a very good joke, too"; at which the Regius
Professor of Physiology burst into a roar of laughter and slapped his
thigh in a highly indecorous fashion. The audience were so enraged at
this unseemly behaviour on the part of their host, that there might
have been a considerable disturbance, had it not been for the
judicious interference of young Fritz von Hartmann, who had now
recovered from his lethargy. Stepping to the front of the platform,
the young man apologised for the conduct of his companion.

"I am sorry to say," he said, "that he is a harum-scarum sort of
fellow, although he appeared so grave at the commencement of this
experiment. He is still suffering from mesmeric reaction, and is
hardly accountable for his words. As to the experiment itself, I do
not consider it to be a failure. It is very possible that our spirits
may have been communing in space during this hour; but, unfortunately,
our gross bodily memory is distinct from our spirit, and we cannot
recall what has occurred. My energies shall now be devoted to devising
some means by which spirits may be able to recollect what occurs to
them in their free state, and I trust that when I have worked this
out, I may have the pleasure of meeting you all once again in this
hall, and demonstrating to you the result." This address, coming from
so young a student, caused considerable astonishment among the
audience, and some were inclined to be offended, thinking that he
assumed rather too much importance. The majority, however, looked upon
him as a young man of great promise, and many comparisons were made as
they left the hall between his dignified conduct and the levity of his
professor, who during the above remarks was laughing heartily in a
corner, by no means abashed at the failure of the experiment.

Now although all these learned men were filing out of the lecture-room
under the impression that they had seen nothing of note, as a matter
of fact one of the most wonderful things in the whole history of the
world had just occurred before their very eyes. Professor von
Baumgarten had been so far correct in his theory that both his spirit
and that of his pupil had been, for a time, absent from the body. But
here a strange and unforeseen complication had occurred. In their
return the spirit of Fritz von Hartmann had entered into the body of
Alexis von Baumgarten, and that of Alexis von Baumgarten had taken up
its abode in the frame of Fritz von Hartmann. Hence the slang and
scurrility which issued from the lips of the serious Professor, and
hence also the weighty words and grave statements which fell from the
careless student. It was an unprecedented event, yet no one knew of
it, least of all those whom it concerned.

The body of the Professor, feeling conscious suddenly of a great
dryness about the back of the throat, sallied out into the street,
still chuckling to himself over the result of the experiment, for the
soul of Fritz within was reckless at the thought of the bride whom he
had won so easily. His first impulse was to go up to the house and see
her, but on second thoughts he came to the conclusion that it would be
best to stay away until Madame Baumgarten should be informed by her
husband of the agreement which had been made. He therefore made his
way down to the Grüner Mann, which was one of the favourite
trysting-places of the wilder students, and ran, boisterously waving
his cane in the air, into the little parlour, where sat Spiegel and
Müller and half a dozen other boon companions.

"Ha, ha! my boys," he shouted. "I knew I should find you here. Drink
up, every one of you, and call for what you like, for I'm going to
stand treat to-day."

Had the green man who is depicted upon the signpost of that well-known
inn suddenly marched into the room and called for a bottle of wine,
the students could not have been more amazed than they were by this
unexpected entry of their revered professor. They were so astonished
that for a minute or two they glared at him in utter bewilderment
without being able to make any reply to his hearty invitation.

"Donner und Blitzen!" shouted the Professor angrily. "What the deuce
is the matter with you, then? You sit there like a set of stuck pigs
staring at me. What is it then?"

"It is the unexpected honour," stammered Spiegel, who was in the
chair.

"Honour--rubbish!" said the Professor testily. "Do you think that just
because I happen to have been exhibiting mesmerism to a parcel of old
fossils, I am therefore too proud to associate with dear old friends
like you? Come out of that chair, Spiegel, my boy, for I shall preside
now. Beer, or wine, or schnapps, my lads--call for what you like, and
put it all down to me."

Never was there such an afternoon in the Grüner Mann. The foaming
flagons of lager and the green-necked bottles of Rhenish circulated
merrily. By degrees the students lost their shyness in the presence of
their Professor. As for him, he shouted, he sang, he roared, he
balanced a long tobacco-pipe upon his nose, and offered to run a
hundred yards against any member of the company. The Kellner and the
barmaid whispered to each other outside the door their astonishment at
such proceedings on the part of a Regius Professor of the ancient
university of Keinplatz. They had still more to whisper about
afterwards, for the learned man cracked the Kellner's crown, and
kissed the barmaid behind the kitchen door.

"Gentlemen," said the Professor, standing up, albeit somewhat
totteringly, at the end of the table, and balancing his high,
old-fashioned wine glass in his bony hand, "I must now explain to you
what is the cause of this festivity."

"Hear! hear!" roared the students, hammering their beer glasses
against the table; "a speech, a speech!--silence for a speech!"

"The fact is, my friends," said the Professor, beaming through his
spectacles, "I hope very soon to be married."

"Married!" cried a student, bolder than the others. "Is Madame dead,
then?"

"Madame who?"

"Why, Madame von Baumgarten, of course."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the Professor; "I can see, then, that you know all
about my former difficulties. No, she is not dead, but I have reason
to believe that she will not oppose my marriage."

"That is very accommodating of her," remarked one of the company.

"In fact," said the Professor, "I hope that she will now be induced to
aid me in getting a wife. She and I never took to each other very
much; but now I hope all that may be ended, and when I marry she will
come and stay with me."

"What a happy family!" exclaimed some wag.

"Yes, indeed; and I hope that you will come to my wedding, all of you.
I won't mention names, but here is to my little bride!" and the
Professor waved his glass in the air.

"Here's to his little bride!" roared the roisterers, with shouts of
laughter. "Here's her health. Sie soll leben--Hoch!" And so the fun
waxed still more fast and furious, while each young fellow followed
the Professor's example, and drank a toast to the girl of his heart.

While all this festivity had been going on at the Grüner Mann, a very
different scene had been enacted elsewhere. Young Fritz von Hartmann,
with a solemn face and a reserved manner, had, after the experiment,
consulted and adjusted some mathematical instruments; after which,
with a few peremptory words to the janitor, he had walked out into the
street and wended his way slowly in the direction of the house of the
Professor. As he walked he saw Von Althaus, the professor of anatomy,
in front of him, and, quickening his pace, he overtook him.

"I say, Von Althaus," he exclaimed, tapping him on the sleeve, "you
were asking me for some information the other day concerning the
middle coat of the cerebral arteries. Now I find----"

"Donnerwetter!" shouted Von Althaus, who was a peppery old fellow.
"What the deuce do you mean by your impertinence! I'll have you up
before the Academical Senate for this, sir"; with which threat he
turned on his heel and hurried away. Von Hartmann was much surprised
at this reception. "It's on account of this failure of my experiment,"
he said to himself, and continued moodily on his way.

Fresh surprises were in store for him, however. He was hurrying along
when he was overtaken by two students. These youths, instead of
raising their caps or showing any other sign of respect, gave a wild
whoop of delight the instant that they saw him, and rushing at him
seized him by each arm and commenced dragging him along with them.

"Gott in Himmel!" roared Von Hartmann. "What is the meaning of this
unparalleled insult? Where are you taking me?"

"To crack a bottle of wine with us," said the two students. "Come
along! That is an invitation which you have never refused."

"I never heard of such insolence in my life!" cried Von Hartmann. "Let
go my arms! I shall certainly have you rusticated for this. Let me go,
I say!" and he kicked furiously at his captors.

"Oh, if you choose to turn ill-tempered, you may go where you like,"
the students said, releasing him. "We can do very well without you."

"I know you. I'll pay you out," said Von Hartmann furiously, and
continued in the direction which he imagined to be his own home, much
incensed at the two episodes which had occurred to him on the way.

Now, Madame Von Baumgarten, who was looking out of the window and
wondering why her husband was late for dinner, was considerably
astonished to see the young student come stalking down the road. As
already remarked, she had a great antipathy to him, and if ever he
ventured into the house it was on sufferance, and under the protection
of the Professor. Still more astonished was she, therefore, when she
beheld him undo the wicket-gate and stride up the garden path with the
air of one who is master of the situation. She could hardly believe
her eyes, and hastened to the door with all her maternal instincts up
in arms. From the upper windows the fair Elise had also observed this
daring move upon the part of her lover, and her heart beat quick with
mingled pride and consternation.

"Good day, sir," Madame Baumgarten remarked to the intruder, as she
stood in gloomy majesty in the open doorway.

"A very fine day indeed, Martha," returned the other. "Now, don't
stand there like a statue of Juno, but bustle about and get the dinner
ready, for I am wellnigh starved."

"Martha! Dinner!" ejaculated the lady, falling back in astonishment.

"Yes, dinner, Martha, dinner!" howled Von Hartmann, who was becoming
irritable. "Is there anything wonderful in that request when a man has
been out all day? I'll wait in the dining-room. Anything will do.
Schinken, and sausage, and prunes--any little thing that happens to be
about. There you are, standing staring again. Woman, will you or will
you not stir your legs?"

This last address, delivered with a perfect shriek of rage, had the
effect of sending good Madame Baumgarten flying along the passage and
through the kitchen, where she locked herself up in the scullery and
went into violent hysterics. In the meantime Von Hartmann strode into
the room and threw himself down upon the sofa in the worst of tempers.

"Elise!" he shouted. "Confound the girl! Elise!"

Thus roughly summoned, the young lady came timidly downstairs and into
the presence of her lover. "Dearest!" she cried, throwing her arms
round him, "I know this is all done for my sake! It is a /ruse/ in
order to see me."

Von Hartmann's indignation at this fresh attack upon him was so great
that he became speechless for a minute from rage, and could only glare
and shake his fists, while he struggled in her embrace. When he at
last regained his utterance, he indulged in such a bellow of passion
that the young lady dropped back, petrified with fear, into an
arm-chair.

"Never have I passed such a day in my life," Von Hartmann cried,
stamping upon the floor. "My experiment has failed. Von Althaus has
insulted me. Two students have dragged me along the public road. My
wife nearly faints when I ask her for dinner, and my daughter flies at
me and hugs me like a grizzly bear."

"You are ill, dear," the young lady cried. "Your mind is wandering.
You have not even kissed me once."

"No, and I don't intend to either," Von Hartmann said with decision.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why don't you go and fetch my
slippers, and help your mother to dish the dinner?"

"And is it for this," Elise cried, burying her face in her
handkerchief--"is it for this that I have loved you passionately for
upwards of ten months? Is it for this that I have braved my mother's
wrath? Oh, you have broken my heart; I am sure you have!" and she
sobbed hysterically.

"I can't stand much more of this," roared Von Hartmann furiously.
"What the deuce does the girl mean? What did I do ten months ago which
inspired you with such a particular affection for me? If you are
really so very fond, you would do better to run away down and find the
Schinken and some bread, instead of talking all this nonsense."

"Oh, my darling!" cried the unhappy maiden, throwing herself into the
arms of what she imagined to be her lover, "you do but joke in order
to frighten your little Elise."

Now it chanced that at the moment of this unexpected embrace Von
Hartmann was still leaning back against the end of the sofa, which,
like much German furniture, was in a somewhat rickety condition. It
also chanced that beneath this end of the sofa there stood a tank full
of water in which the physiologist was conducting certain experiments
upon the ova of fish, and which he kept in his drawing-room in order
to ensure an equable temperature. The additional weight of the maiden
combined with the impetus with which she hurled herself upon him,
caused the precarious piece of furniture to give way, and the body of
the unfortunate student was hurled backwards into the tank, in which
his head and shoulders were firmly wedged, while his lower extremities
flapped helplessly about in the air. This was the last straw.
Extricating himself with some difficulty from his unpleasant position,
Von Hartmann gave an inarticulate yell of fury, and dashing out of the
room, in spite of the entreaties of Elise, he seized his hat and
rushed off into the town, all dripping and dishevelled, with the
intention of seeking in some inn the food and comfort which he could
not find at home.

As the spirit of Von Baumgarten encased in the body of Von Hartmann
strode down the winding pathway which led down to the little town,
brooding angrily over his many wrongs, he became aware that an elderly
man was approaching him who appeared to be in an advanced state of
intoxication. Von Hartmann waited by the side of the road and watched
this individual, who came stumbling along, reeling from one side of
the road to the other, and singing a student song in a very husky and
drunken voice. At first his interest was merely excited by the fact of
seeing a man of so venerable an appearance in such a disgraceful
condition, but as he approached nearer, he became convinced that he
knew the other well, though he could not recall when or where he had
met him. This impression became so strong with him, that when the
stranger came abreast of him he stepped in front of him and took a
good look at his features.

"Well, sonny," said the drunken man, surveying Von Hartmann and
swaying about in front of him, "where the Henker have I seen you
before? I know you as well as I know myself. Who the deuce are you?"

"I am Professor von Baumgarten," said the student. "May I ask who you
are? I am strangely familiar with your features."

"You should never tell lies, young man," said the other. "You're
certainly not the Professor, for he is an ugly, snuffy old chap, and
you are a big, broad-shouldered young fellow. As to myself, I am Fritz
von Hartmann at your service."

"That you certainly are not," exclaimed the body of Von Hartmann. "You
might very well be his father. But hullo, sir, are you aware that you
are wearing my studs and my watch-chain?"

"Donnerwetter!" hiccoughed the other. "If those are not the trousers
for which my tailor is about to sue me, may I never taste beer again."

Now as Von Hartmann, overwhelmed by the many strange things which had
occurred to him that day, passed his hand over his forehead and cast
his eyes downwards, he chanced to catch the reflection of his own face
in a pool which the rain had left upon the road. To his utter
astonishment he perceived that his face was that of a youth, that his
dress was that of a fashionable young student, and that in every way
he was the antithesis of the grave and scholarly figure in which his
mind was wont to dwell. In an instant his active brain ran over the
series of events which had occurred and now sprang to the conclusion.
He fairly reeled under the blow.

"Himmel!" he cried, "I see it all. Our souls are in the wrong bodies.
I am you and you are I. My theory is proved--but at what an expense!
Is the most scholarly mind in Europe to go about with this frivolous
exterior? Oh, the labours of a lifetime are ruined!" and he smote his
breast in his despair.

"I say," remarked the real Von Hartmann from the body of the
Professor, "I quite see the force of your remarks, but don't go
knocking my body about like that. You received it in excellent
condition, but I perceive that you have wet it and bruised it, and
spilled snuff over my ruffled shirt-front."

"It matters little," the other said moodily. "Such as we are so must
we stay. My theory is triumphantly proved, but the cost is terrible."

"If I thought so," said the spirit of the student, "it would be hard
indeed. What could I do with these stiff old limbs, and how could I
woo Elise and persuade her that I was not her father? No, thank
Heaven, in spite of the beer which has upset me more than ever it
could upset my real self, I can see a way out of it."

"How?" gasped the Professor.

"Why, by repeating the experiment. Liberate our souls once more, and
the chances are that they will find their way back into their
respective bodies."

No drowning man could clutch more eagerly at a straw than did Von
Baumgarten's spirit at this suggestion. In feverish haste he dragged
his own frame to the side of the road and threw it into a mesmeric
trance; he then extracted the crystal ball from the pocket, and
managed to bring himself into the same condition.

Some students and peasants who chanced to pass during the next hour
were much astonished to see the worthy Professor of Physiology and his
favourite student both sitting upon a very muddy bank and both
completely insensible. Before the hour was up quite a crowd had
assembled, and they were discussing the advisability of sending for an
ambulance to convey the pair to hospital, when the learned savant
opened his eyes and gazed vacantly about him. For an instant he seemed
to forget how he had come there, but next moment he astonished his
audience by waving his skinny arms above his head and crying out in a
voice of rapture, "Gott sei gedanket! I am myself again. I feel I am!"
Nor was the amazement lessened when the student, springing to his
feet, burst into the same cry, and the two performed a sort of /pas de
joie/ in the middle of the road.

For some time after that people had some suspicion of the sanity of
both the actors in this strange episode. When the Professor published
his experiences in the /Medicalschrift/ as he had promised, he was met
by an intimation, even from his colleagues, that he would do well to
have his mind cared for, and that another such publication would
certainly consign him to a madhouse. The student also found by
experience that it was wisest to be silent about the matter.

When the worthy lecturer returned home that night he did not receive
the cordial welcome which he might have looked for after his strange
adventures. On the contrary, he was roundly upbraided by both his
female relatives for smelling of drink and tobacco, and also for being
absent while a young scapegrace invaded the house and insulted its
occupants. It was long before the domestic atmosphere of the
lecturer's house resumed its normal quiet, and longer still before the
genial face of Von Hartmann was seen beneath its roof. Perseverance,
however, conquers every obstacle, and the student eventually succeeded
in pacifying the enraged ladies and in establishing himself upon the
old footing. He has now no longer any cause to fear the enmity of
Madame, for he is Hauptmann von Hartmann of the Emperor's own Uhlans,
and his loving wife Elise had already presented him with two little
Uhlans as a visible sign and token of her affection.



CYPRIAN OVERBECK WELLS


A LITERARY MOSAIC

From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that
my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however,
had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person
to share my views. It is true that private friends have sometimes,
after listening to my effusions, gone the length of remarking,
"Really, Smith, that's not half bad!" or, "You take my advice, old
boy, and send that to some magazine!" but I have never on these
occasions had the moral courage to inform my adviser that the article
in question had been sent to well-nigh every publisher in London, and
had come back again with a rapidity and precision which spoke well for
the efficiency of our postal arrangements.

Had my manuscripts been paper boomerangs they could not have returned
with greater accuracy to their unhappy despatcher. Oh, the vileness
and utter degradation of the moment when the stale little cylinder of
closely written pages, which seemed so fresh and full of promise a few
days ago, is handed in by a remorseless postman! And what moral
depravity shines through the editor's ridiculous plea of "want of
space!" But the subject is a painful one, and a digression from the
plain statement of facts which I originally contemplated.

From the age of seventeen to that of three-and-twenty I was a literary
volcano in a constant state of eruption. Poems and tales, articles and
reviews, nothing came amiss to my pen. From the great sea-serpent to
the nebular hypothesis, I was ready to write on anything or
everything, and I can safely say that I seldom handled a subject
without throwing new lights upon it. Poetry and romance, however, had
always the greatest attractions for me. How I have wept over the
pathos of my heroines, and laughed at the comicalities of my buffoons!
Alas! I could find no one to join me in my appreciation, and solitary
admiration for one's self, however genuine, becomes satiating after a
time. My father remonstrated with me too on the score of expense and
loss of time, so that I was finally compelled to relinquish my dreams
of literary independence and to become a clerk in a wholesale
mercantile firm connected with the West African trade.

Even when condemned to the prosaic duties which fell to my lot in the
office, I continued faithful to my first love. I have introduced
pieces of word-painting into the most commonplace business letters
which have, I am told, considerably astonished the recipients. My
refined sarcasm has made defaulting creditors writhe and wince.
Occasionally, like the great Silas Wegg, I would drop into poetry, and
so raise the whole tone of the correspondence. Thus what could be more
elegant than my rendering of the firm's instructions to the captain of
one of their vessels. It ran in this way:--

"From England, Captain, you must steer a
Course directly to Madeira,
Land the casks of salted beef,
Then away to Teneriffe.
Pray be careful, cool, and wary
With the merchants of Canary.
When you leave them make the most
Of the trade-winds to the coast.
Down it you shall sail as far
As the land of Calabar,
And from there you'll onward go
To Bonny and Fernando Po"----

and so on for four pages. The captain, instead of treasuring this
little gem, called at the office next day, and demanded with quite
unnecessary warmth what the thing meant, and I was compelled to
translate it all back into prose. On this, as on other similar
occasions, my employer took me severely to task--for he was, you see,
a man entirely devoid of all pretensions to literary taste!

All this, however, is a mere preamble, and leads up to the fact that
after ten years or so of drudgery I inherited a legacy which, though
small, was sufficient to satisfy my simple wants. Finding myself
independent, I rented a quiet house removed from the uproar and bustle
of London, and there I settled down with the intention of producing
some great work which should single me out from the family of the
Smiths, and render my name immortal. To this end I laid in several
quires of foolscap, a box of quill pens, and a sixpenny bottle of ink,
and having given my housekeeper injunctions to deny me to all
visitors, I proceeded to look round for a suitable subject.

I was looking round for some weeks. At the end of that time I found
that I had by constant nibbling devoured a large number of the quills,
and had spread the ink out to such advantage, what with blots, spills,
and abortive commencements, that there appeared to be some everywhere
except in the bottle. As to the story itself, however, the facility of
my youth had deserted me completely, and my mind remained a complete
blank; nor could I, do what I would, excite my sterile imagination to
conjure up a single incident or character.

In this strait I determined to devote my leisure to running rapidly
through the works of the leading English novelists, from Daniel Defoe
to the present day, in the hope of stimulating my latent ideas and of
getting a good grasp of the general tendency of literature. For some
time past I had avoided opening any work of fiction because one of the
greatest faults of my youth had been that I invariably and
unconsciously mimicked the style of the last author whom I had
happened to read. Now, however, I made up my mind to seek safety in a
multitude, and by consulting /all/ the English classics to avoid the
danger of imitating any one too closely. I had just accomplished the
task of reading through the majority of the standard novels at the
time when my narrative commences.

It was, then, about twenty minutes to ten on the night of the fourth
of June, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, that, after disposing of a
pint of beer and a Welsh rarebit for my supper, I seated myself in my
arm-chair, cocked my feet upon a stool, and lit my pipe, as was my
custom. Both my pulse and my temperature were, as far as I know,
normal at the time. I would give the state of the barometer, but that
unlucky instrument had experienced an unprecedented fall of forty-two
inches--from a nail to the ground--and was not in a reliable
condition. We live in a scientific age, and I flatter myself that I
move with the times.

Whilst in that comfortable lethargic condition which accompanies both
digestion and poisoning by nicotine, I suddenly became aware of the
extraordinary fact that my little drawing-room had elongated into a
great /salon/, and that my humble table had increased in proportion.
Round this colossal mahogany were seated a great number of people who
were talking earnestly together, and the surface in front of them was
strewn with books and pamphlets. I could not help observing that these
persons were dressed in a most extraordinary mixture of costumes, for
those at the end nearest to me wore peruke wigs, swords, and all the
fashions of two centuries back; those about the centre had tight
knee-breeches, high cravats, and heavy bunches of seals; while among
those at the far side the majority were dressed in the most modern
style, and among them I saw, to my surprise, several eminent men of
letters whom I had the honour of knowing. There were two or three
women in the company. I should have risen to my feet to greet these
unexpected guests, but all power of motion appeared to have deserted
me, and I could only lie still and listen to their conversation, which
I soon perceived to be all about myself.

"Egad!" exclaimed a rough, weather-beaten man, who was smoking a long
churchwarden pipe at my end of the table, "my heart softens for him.
Why, gossips, we've been in the same straits ourselves. Gadzooks,
never did mother feel more concern for her eldest born than I when
Rory Random went out to make his own way in the world."

"Right, Tobias, right!" cried another man, seated at my very elbow.
"By my troth, I lost more flesh over poor Robin on his island, than
had I the sweating sickness twice told. The tale was well-nigh done
when in swaggers my Lord of Rochester--a merry gallant, and one whose
word in matters literary might make or mar. 'How now, Defoe,' quoth
he, 'hast a tale on hand?' 'Even so, your lordship,' I returned. 'A
right merry one, I trust,' quoth he. 'Discourse unto me concerning thy
heroine, a comely lass, Dan, or I mistake.' 'Nay,' I replied, 'there
is no heroine in the matter.' 'Split not your phrases,' quoth he;
'thou weighest every word like a scald attorney. Speak to me of thy
principal female character, be she heroine or no.' 'My lord,' I
answered, 'there is no female character.' 'Then out upon thyself and
thy book too!' he cried. 'Thou hadst best burn it!'--and so out in
great dudgeon, whilst I fell to mourning over my poor romance, which
was thus, as it were, sentenced to death before its birth. Yet there
are a thousand now who have heard of Robin and his man Friday, to one
who has heard of my Lord of Rochester."

"Very true, Defoe," said a genial-looking man in a red waistcoat, who
was sitting at the modern end of the table. "But all this won't help
our good friend Smith in making a start at his story, which, I
believe, was the reason why we assembled."

"The Dickens it is!" stammered a little man beside him, and everybody
laughed, especially the genial man, who cried out, "Charley Lamb,
Charley Lamb, you'll never alter. You would make a pun if you were
hanged for it."

"That would be a case of haltering," returned the other, on which
everybody laughed again.

By this time I had begun to dimly realize in my confused brain the
enormous honour which had been done me. The greatest masters of
fiction in every age of English letters had apparently made a
rendezvous beneath my roof, in order to assist me in my difficulties.
There were many faces at the table whom I was unable to identify; but
when I looked hard at others I often found them to be very familiar to
me, whether from paintings or from mere description. Thus between the
first two speakers, who had betrayed themselves as Defoe and Smollett,
there sat a dark, saturnine, corpulent old man, with harsh prominent
features, who I was sure could be none other than the famous author of
Gulliver. There were several others of whom I was not so sure, sitting
at the other side of the table, but I conjecture that both Fielding
and Richardson were among them, and I could swear to the lantern-jaws
and cadaverous visage of Lawrence Sterne. Higher up I could see among
the crowd the high forehead of Sir Walter Scott, the masculine
features of George Eliott, and the flattened nose of Thackeray; while
amongst the living I recognised James Payn, Walter Besant, the lady
known as "Ouida," Robert Louis Stevenson, and several of lesser note.
Never before, probably, had such an assemblage of choice spirits
gathered under one roof.

"Well," said Sir Walter Scott, speaking with a very pronounced accent,
"ye ken the auld proverb, sirs, 'Ower mony cooks,' or as the Border
minstrel sang--

"'Black Johnstone wi' his troopers ten
Might mak' the heart turn cauld,
But Johnstone when he's a' alane
Is waur ten thoosand fauld.'

"The Johnstones were one of the Redesdale families, second cousins of
the Armstrongs, and connected by marriage to----"

"Perhaps, Sir Walter," interrupted Thackeray, "you would take the
responsibility off our hands by yourself dictating the commencement of
a story to this young literary aspirant."

"Na, na!" cried Sir Walter; "I'll do my share, but there's Chairlie
over there as full o' wut as a Radical's full o' treason. He's the
laddie to give a cheery opening to it."

Dickens was shaking his head, and apparently about to refuse the
honour, when a voice from among the moderns--I could not see who it
was for the crowd--said:

"Suppose we begin at the end of the table and work round, anyone
contributing a little as the fancy seizes him?"

"Agreed! agreed!" cried the whole company; and every eye was turned on
Defoe, who seemed very uneasy, and filled his pipe from a great
tobacco-box in front of him.

"Nay, gossips," he said, "there are others more worthy----"

But he was interrupted by loud cries of "No! no!" from the whole
table, and Smollett shouted out, "Stand to it, Dan--stand to it! You
and I and the Dean here will make three short tacks just to fetch her
out of harbour, and then she may drift where she pleases." Thus
encouraged, Defoe cleared his throat, and began in this way, talking
between the puffs of his pipe:--

"My father was a well-to-do yeoman of Cheshire, named Cyprian
Overbeck, but, marrying about the year 1617, he assumed the name of
his wife's family, which was Wells; and thus I, their eldest son, was
named Cyprian Overbeck Wells. The farm was a very fertile one, and
contained some of the best grazing land in those parts, so that my
father was enabled to lay by money to the extent of a thousand crowns,
which he laid out in an adventure to the Indies with such surprising
success that in less than three years it had increased fourfold. Thus
encouraged, he bought a part share of the trader, and, fitting her out
once more with such commodities as were most in demand (viz. old
muskets, hangars and axes, besides glasses, needles, and the like), he
placed me on board as supercargo to look after his interests, and
dispatched us upon our voyage.

"We had a fair wind as far as Cape de Verde, and there, getting into
the north-west trade-winds, made good progress down the African coast.
Beyond sighting a Barbary rover once, whereat our mariners were in sad
distress, counting themselves already as little better than slaves, we
had good luck until we had come within a hundred leagues of the Cape
of Good Hope, when the wind veered round to the southward and blew
exceeding hard, while the sea rose to such a height that the end of
the mainyard dipped into the water, and I heard the master say that
though he had been at sea for five-and-thirty years he had never seen
the like of it, and that he had little expectation of riding through
it. On this I fell to wringing my hands and bewailing myself, until
the mast going by the board with a crash, I thought that the ship had
struck, and swooned with terror, falling into the scuppers and lying
like one dead, which was the saving of me, as will appear in the
sequel. For the mariners, giving up all hope of saving the ship, and
being in momentary expectation that she would founder, pushed off in
the long-boat, whereby I fear that they met the fate which they hoped
to avoid, since I have never from that day heard anything of them. For
my own part, on recovering from the swoon into which I had fallen, I
found that, by the mercy of Providence, the sea had gone down, and
that I was alone in the vessel. At which last discovery I was so
terror-struck that I could but stand wringing my hands and bewailing
my sad fate, until at last taking heart, I fell to comparing my lot
with that of my unhappy comerados, on which I became more cheerful,
and descending to the cabin, made a meal off such dainties as were in
the captain's locker."

Having got so far, Defoe remarked that he thought he had given them a
fair start, and handed over the story to Dean Swift, who, after
premising that he feared he would find himself as much at sea as
Master Cyprian Overbeck Wells, continued in this way:--

"For two days I drifted about in great distress, fearing that there
should be a return of the gale, and keeping an eager look-out for my
late companions. Upon the third day, towards evening, I observed to my
extreme surprise that the ship was under the influence of a very
powerful current, which ran to the north-east with such violence that
she was carried, now bows on, now stern on, and occasionally drifting
sideways like a crab, at a rate which I cannot compute at less than
twelve or fifteen knots an hour. For several weeks I was borne away in
this manner, until one morning, to my inexpressible joy, I sighted an
island upon the starboard quarter. The current would, however, have
carried me past it had I not made shift, though single-handed, to set
the flying-jib so as to turn her bows, and then clapping on the
spirit-sail, studding-sail, and fore-sail, I clewed up the halliards
upon the port side, and put the wheel down hard a-star-board, the wind
being at the time north-east-half-east."

At the description of this nautical manœuvre I observed that Smollett
grinned, and a gentleman who was sitting higher up the table in the
uniform of the Royal Navy, and who I guessed to be Captain Marryat,
became very uneasy and fidgeted in his seat.

"By this means I got clear of the current and was able to steer within
a quarter of a mile of the beach, which indeed I might have approached
still nearer by making another tack, but being an excellent swimmer, I
deemed it best to leave the vessel, which was almost waterlogged, and
to make the best of my way to the shore.

"I had had my doubts hitherto as to whether this new-found country was
inhabited or no, but as I approached nearer to it, being on the summit
of a great wave, I perceived a number of figures on the beach, engaged
apparently in watching me and my vessel. My joy, however, was
considerably lessened when on reaching the land I found that the
figures consisted of a vast concourse of animals of various sorts who
were standing about in groups, and who hurried down to the water's
edge to meet me. I had scarce put my foot upon the sand before I was
surrounded by an eager crowd of deer, dogs, wild boars, buffaloes, and
other creatures, none of whom showed the least fear either of me or of
each other, but, on the contrary, were animated by a common feeling of
curiosity, as well as, it would appear, by some degree of disgust."

"A second edition," whispered Lawrence Sterne to his neighbour;
"Gulliver served up cold."

"Did you speak, sir?" asked the Dean very sternly, having evidently
overheard the remark.

"My words were not addressed to you, sir," answered Sterne, looking
rather frightened.

"They were none the less insolent," roared the Dean. "Your reverence
would fain make a Sentimental Journey of the narrative, I doubt not,
and find pathos in a dead donkey--though, faith, no man can blame thee
for mourning over thy own kith and kin."

"Better that than to wallow in all the filth of Yahoo-land," returned
Sterne warmly, and a quarrel would certainly have ensued but for the
interposition of the remainder of the company. As it was, the Dean
refused indignantly to have any further hand in the story, and Sterne
also stood out of it, remarking with a sneer that he was loth to fit a
good blade on to a poor handle. Under these circumstances some further
unpleasantness might have occurred had not Smollett rapidly taken up
the narrative, continuing it in the third person instead of the
first:--

"Our hero, being considerably alarmed at this strange reception, lost
little time in plunging into the sea again and regaining his vessel,
being convinced that the worst which might befall him from the
elements would be as nothing compared to the dangers of this
mysterious island. It was as well that he took this course, for before
nightfall his ship was overhauled and he himself picked up by a
British man-of-war, the /Lightning/ (74), then returning from the West
Indies, where it had formed part of the fleet under the command of
Admiral Benbow. Young Wells, being a likely lad enough, well-spoken
and high-spirited, was at once entered on the books as officer's
servant, in which capacity he both gained great popularity on account
of the freedom of his manners, and found an opportunity for indulging
in those practical pleasantries for which he had all his life been
famous.

"Among the quartermasters of the /Lightning/ there was one named
Jebediah Anchorstock, whose appearance was so remarkable that it
quickly attracted the attention of our hero. He was a man of about
fifty, dark with exposure to the weather, and so tall that as he came
along the 'tween decks he had to bend himself nearly double. The most
striking peculiarity of this individual was, however, that in his
boyhood some evil-minded person had tattooed eyes all over his
countenance with such marvellous skill that it was difficult at a
short distance to pick out his real ones among so many counterfeits.
On this strange personage Master Cyprian determined to exercise his
talents for mischief, the more so as he had learned that he was
extremely superstitious, and also that he had left behind him in
Portsmouth a strong-minded spouse of whom he stood in mortal terror.
With this object he secured one of the sheep which were kept on board
for the officer's table, and pouring a can of rumbo down its throat,
reduced it to a state of utter intoxication. He then conveyed it to
Anchorstock's berth, and with the assistance of some other imps, as
mischievous as himself, dressed it up in a high nightcap and gown, and
covered it over with the bedclothes.

"When the quartermaster came down from his watch our hero met him at
the door of his berth with an agitated face. 'Mr. Anchorstock,' said
he, 'can it be that your wife is on board?' 'Wife!' roared the
astonished sailor. 'Ye white-faced swab, what d'ye mean?' 'If she's
not here in the ship it must be her ghost,' said Cyprian, shaking his
head gloomily. 'In the ship! How in thunder could she get into the
ship? Why, master, I believe as how you're weak in the upper works,
d'ye see? to as much as think o' such a thing. My Poll is moored head
and starn, behind the point at Portsmouth, more'n two thousand mile
away.' 'Upon my word,' said our hero, very earnestly, 'I saw a female
look out of your cabin not five minutes ago.' 'Ay, ay, Mr.
Anchorstock,' joined in several of the conspirators. 'We all saw
her--a spanking-looking craft with a dead-light mounted on one side.'
'Sure enough,' said Anchorstock, staggered by this accumulation of
evidence, 'my Polly's starboard eye was doused for ever by long Sue
Williams of the Hard. But if so be as she be there I must see her, be
she ghost or quick'; with which the honest sailor, in much
perturbation and trembling in every limb, began to shuffle forward
into the cabin, holding the light well in front of him. It chanced,
however, that the unhappy sheep, which was quietly engaged in sleeping
off the effects of its unusual potations, was awakened by the noise of
his approach, and finding herself in such an unusual position, sprang
out of bed and rushed furiously for the door, bleating wildly, and
rolling about like a brig in a tornado, partly from intoxication and
partly from the nightdress which impeded her movements. As Anchorstock
saw this extraordinary apparition bearing down upon him, he uttered a
yell and fell flat upon his face, convinced that he had to do with a
supernatural visitor, the more so as the confederates heightened the
effect by a chorus of most ghastly groans and cries. The joke had
nearly gone beyond what was originally intended, for the quartermaster
lay as one dead, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he
could be brought to his senses. To the end of the voyage he stoutly
asserted that he had seen the distant Mrs. Anchorstock, remarking with
many oaths that though he was too woundily scared to take much note of
the features, there was no mistaking the strong smell of rum which was
characteristic of his better half.

"It chanced shortly after this to be the king's birthday, an event
which was signalised aboard the /Lightning/ by the death of the
commander under singular circumstances. This officer, who was a real
fair-weather Jack, hardly knowing the ship's keel from her ensign, had
obtained his position through parliamentary interest, and used it with
such tyranny and cruelty that he was universally execrated. So
unpopular was he that when a plot was entered into by the whole crew
to punish his misdeeds with death, he had not a single friend among
six hundred souls to warn him of his danger. It was the custom on
board the king's ships that upon his birthday the entire ship's
company should be drawn up upon deck, and that at a signal they should
discharge their muskets into the air in honour of his Majesty. On this
occasion word had been secretly passed round for every man to slip a
slug into his firelock, instead of the blank cartridge provided. On
the boatswain blowing his whistle the men mustered upon deck and
formed line, whilst the captain, standing well in front of them,
delivered a few words of them. 'When I give the word,' he concluded,
'you shall discharge your pieces, and by thunder, if any man is a
second before or a second after his fellows I shall trice him up to
the weather rigging!' With these words he roared 'Fire!' on which
every man levelled his musket straight at his head and pulled the
trigger. So accurate was the aim and so short the distance, that more
than five hundred bullets struck him simultaneously, blowing away his
head and a large portion of his body. There were so many concerned in
this matter, and it was so hopeless to trace it to any individual,
that the officers were unable to punish anyone for the affair--the
more readily as the captain's haughty ways and heartless conduct had
made him quite as hateful to them as to the men whom he commanded.

"By his pleasantries and the natural charm of his manners our hero so
far won the good wishes of the ship's company that they parted with
infinite regret upon their arrival in England. Filial duty, however,
urged him to return home and report himself to his father, with which
object he posted from Portsmouth to London, intending to proceed
thence to Shropshire. As it chanced, however, one of the horses
sprained his off foreleg while passing through Chichester, and as no
change could be obtained, Cyprian found himself compelled to put up at
the Crown and Bull for the night.

"Ods bodikins!" continued Smollett, laughing, "I never could pass a
comfortable hostel without stopping and so, with your permission, I'll
e'en stop here, and whoever wills may lead friend Cyprian to his
further adventures. Do you, Sir Walter, give us a touch of the Wizard
of the North."

With these words Smollett produced a pipe, and filling it at Defoe's
tobacco-pot, waited patiently for the continuation of the story.

"If I must, I must," remarked the illustrious Scotchman, taking a
pinch of snuff; "but I must beg leave to put Mr. Wells back a few
hundred years, for of all things I love the true mediæval smack. To
proceed then:--

"Our hero being anxious to continue his journey, and learning that it
would be some time before any conveyance would be ready, determined to
push on alone mounted on his gallant grey steed. Travelling was
particularly dangerous at that time, for besides the usual perils
which beset wayfarers, the southern parts of England were in a lawless
and disturbed state which bordered on insurrection. The young man,
however, having loosened his sword in his sheath, so as to be ready
for every eventuality, galloped cheerily upon his way, guiding himself
to the best of his ability by the light of the rising moon.

"He had not gone far before he realised that the cautions which had
been impressed upon him by the landlord, and which he had been
inclined to look upon as self-interested advice, were only too well
justified. At a spot where the road was particularly rough, and ran
across some marshland, he perceived a short distance from him a dark
shadow, which his practised eye detected at once as a body of
crouching men. Reining up his horse within a few yards of the
ambuscade, he wrapped his cloak round his bridle-arm and summoned the
party to stand forth.

"'What ho, my masters!' he cried. 'Are beds so scarce, then, that ye
must hamper the high road of the king with your bodies? Now, by St.
Ursula of Alpuxerra, there be those who might think that birds who fly
o' nights were after higher game than the moorhen or the woodcock!'

"'Blades and targets, comrades!' exclaimed a tall powerful man,
springing into the centre of the road with several companions, and
standing in front of the frightened horse. 'Who is this swashbuckler
who summons his Majesty's lieges from their repose? A very soldado, o'
truth. Hark ye, sir, or my lord, or thy grace, or whatsoever title
your honour's honour may be pleased to approve, thou must curb thy
tongue play, or by the seven witches of Gambleside thou may find
thyself in but a sorry plight.'

"'I prythee, then, that thou wilt expound to me who and what ye are,'
quoth our hero, 'and whether your purpose be such as an honest man may
approve of. As to your threats, they turn from my mind as your
caitiffly weapons would shiver upon my hauberk from Milan.'

"'Nay, Allen,' interrupted one of the party, addressing him who seemed
to be their leader; 'this is a lad of mettle, and such a one as our
honest Jack longs for. But we lure not hawks with empty hands. Look
ye, sir, there is game afoot which it may need such bold hunters as
thyself to follow. Come with us and take a firkin of canary, and we
will find better work for that glaive of thine than getting its owner
into broil and bloodshed; for, by my troth! Milan or no Milan, if my
curtel axe do but ring against that morion of thine it will be an ill
day for thy father's son.'

"For a moment our hero hesitated as to whether it would best become
his knightly traditions to hurl himself against his enemies, or
whether it might not be better to obey their requests. Prudence,
mingled with a large share of curiosity, eventually carried the day,
and dismounting from his horse, he intimated that he was ready to
follow his captors.

"'Spoken like a man!' cried he whom they addressed as Allen. 'Jack
Cade will be right glad of such a recruit. Blood and carrion! but thou
hast the thews of a young ox; and I swear, by the haft of my sword,
that it might have gone ill with some of us hadst thou not listened to
reason!'

"'Nay, not so, good Allen--not so,' squeaked a very small man, who had
remained in the background while there was any prospect of a fray, but
who now came pushing to the front. 'Hadst thou been alone it might
indeed have been so, perchance, but an expert swordsman can disarm at
pleasure such a one as this young knight. Well I remember in the
Palatinate how I clove to the chine even such another--the Baron von
Slogstaff. He struck at me, look ye, so; but I, with buckler and
blade, did, as one might say, deflect it; and then, countering in
carte, I returned in tierce, and so--St. Agnes save us! who comes
here?'

"The apparition which frightened the loquacious little man was
sufficiently strange to cause a qualm even in the bosom of the knight.
Through the darkness there loomed a figure which appeared to be of
gigantic size, and a hoarse voice, issuing apparently some distance
above the heads of the party, broke roughly on the silence of the
night.

"'Now out upon thee, Thomas Allen, and foul be thy fate if thou hast
abandoned thy post without good and sufficient cause. By St. Anselm of
the Holy Grove, thou hadst best have never been born than rouse my
spleen this night. Wherefore is it that you and your men are trailing
over the moor like a flock of geese when Michaelmas is near?'

"'Good captain,' said Allen, doffing his bonnet, an example followed
by others of the band, 'we have captured a goodly youth who was
pricking it along the London road. Methought that some word of thanks
were meet reward for such a service, rather than taunt or threat.'

"'Nay, take it not to heart, bold Allen,' exclaimed their leader, who
was none other than the great Jack Cade himself. 'Thou knowest of old
that my temper is somewhat choleric, and my tongue is not greased with
that unguent which oils the mouths of the lip-serving lords of the
land. And you,' he continued, turning suddenly upon our hero, 'are you
ready to join the great cause which will make England what it was when
the learned Alfred reigned in the land? Zounds, man, speak out, and
pick not your phrases.'

"'I am ready to do aught which may become a knight and a gentleman,'
said the soldier stoutly.

"'Taxes shall be swept away!' cried Cade excitedly--'the impost and
the anpost--the tithe and the hundred-tax. The poor man's salt-box and
flour-bin shall be as free as the nobleman's cellar. Ha! what sayest
thou?'

"'It is but just,' said our hero.

"'Ay, but they give us such justice as the falcon gives the leveret!'
roared the orator. 'Down with them, I say--down with every man of
them! Noble and judge, priest and king, down with them all!'

"'Nay,' said Sir Overbeck Wells, drawing himself up to his full
height, and laying his hand upon the hilt of his sword, 'there I
cannot follow thee, seeing that thou art no true man, but one who
would usurp the rights of our master the king, whom may the Virgin
protect!'

"At these bold words, and the defiance which they conveyed, the rebels
seemed for a moment utterly bewildered; but, encouraged by the hoarse
shout of their leader they brandished their weapons and prepared to
fall upon the knight, who placed himself in a posture for defence and
awaited their attack.

"There now!" cried Sir Walter, rubbing his hands and chuckling, "I've
put the chiel in a pretty warm corner, and we'll see which of you
moderns can take him oot o't. Ne'er a word more will ye get frae me to
help him one way or the other."

"You try your hand, James," cried several voices, and the author in
question had got so far as to make an allusion to a solitary horseman
who was approaching, when he was interrupted by a tall gentleman a
little farther down with a slight stutter and a very nervous manner.

"Excuse me," he said, "but I fancy that I may be able to do something
here. Some of my humble productions have been said to excel Sir Walter
at his best, and I was undoubtedly stronger all round. I could picture
modern society as well as ancient; and as to my plays, why Shakespeare
never came near /The Lady of Lyons/ for popularity. There is this
little thing----" (Here he rummaged among a great pile of papers in
front of him). "Ah! that's a report of mine, when I was in India! Here
it is. No, this is one of my speeches in the House, and this is my
criticism on Tennyson. Didn't I warm him up? I can't find what I
wanted, but of course you have read them all--/Rienzi/, and /Harold/,
and /The Last of the Barons/. Every schoolboy knows them by heart, as
poor Macaulay would have said. Allow me to give you a sample:--

"In spite of the gallant knight's valiant resistance the combat was
too unequal to be sustained. His sword was broken by a slash from a
brown bill, and he was borne to the ground. He expected immediate
death, but such did not seem to be the intention of the ruffians who
had captured him. He was placed upon the back of his own charger and
borne, bound hand and foot, over the trackless moor, in the fastnesses
of which the rebels secreted themselves.

"In the depths of these wilds there stood a stone building which had
once been a farmhouse, but having been for some reason abandoned had
fallen into ruin, and had now become the headquarters of Cade and his
men. A large cow-house near the farm had been utilised as sleeping
quarters, and some rough attempts had been made to shield the
principal room of the main building from the weather by stopping up
the gaping apertures in the walls. In this apartment was spread out a
rough meal for the returning rebels, and our hero was thrown, still
bound, into an empty outhouse, there to await his fate."

Sir Walter had been listening with the greatest impatience to Bulwer
Lytton's narrative, but when it had reached this point he broke in
impatiently.

"We want a touch of your own style, man," he said. "The
animal-magnetico-electro-hysterical-biological-mysterious sort of
story is all your own, but at present you are just a poor copy of
myself, and nothing more."

There was a murmur of assent from the company, and Defoe remarked,
"Truly, Master Lytton, there is a plaguey resemblance in the style,
which may indeed be but a chance, and yet methinks it is sufficiently
marked to warrant such words as our friend hath used."

"Perhaps you will think that this is an imitation also," said Lytton
bitterly, and leaning back in his chair with a morose countenance, he
continued the narrative in this way:--

"Our unfortunate hero had hardly stretched himself upon the straw with
which his dungeon was littered, when a secret door opened in the wall
and a venerable old man swept majestically into the apartment. The
prisoner gazed upon him with astonishment not unmixed with awe, for on
his broad brow was printed the seal of much knowledge--such knowledge
as it is not granted to a son of man to know. He was clad in a long
white robe, crossed and chequered with mystic devices in the Arabic
character, while a high scarlet tiara marked with the square and
circle enhanced his venerable appearance. 'My son,' he said, turning
his piercing and yet dreamy gaze upon Sir Overbeck, 'all things lead
to nothing, and nothing is the foundation of all things. Cosmos is
impenetrable. Why then should we exist?'

"Astounded at this weighty query, and at the philosophic demeanour of
his visitor, our hero made shift to bid him welcome and to demand his
name and quality. As the old man answered him his voice rose and fell
in musical cadences, like the sighing of the east wind, while an
ethereal and aromatic vapour pervaded the apartment.

"'I am the eternal non-ego,' he answered. 'I am the concentrated
negative--the everlasting essence of nothing. You see in me that which
existed before the beginning of matter many years before the
commencement of time. I am the algebraic /x/ which represents the
infinite divisibility of a finite particle.'

"Sir Overbeck felt a shudder as though an ice-cold hand had been
placed upon his brow. 'What is your message?' he whispered, falling
prostrate before his mysterious visitor.

"'To tell you that the eternities beget chaos, and that the
immensities are at the mercy of the divine anánke. Infinitude crouches
before a personality. The mercurial essence is the prime mover in
spirituality, and the thinker is powerless before the pulsating
inanity. The cosmical procession is terminated only by the unknowable
and unpronounceable'----

"May I ask, Mr. Smollett, what you find to laugh at?"

"Gadzooks, master," cried Smollett, who had been sniggering for some
time back. "It seems to me that there is little danger of anyone
venturing to dispute that style with you."

"It's all your own," murmured Sir Walter.

"And very pretty, too," quoth Lawrence Sterne, with a malignant grin.
"Pray, sir, what language do you call it?"

Lytton was so enraged at these remarks, and at the favour with which
they appeared to be received, that he endeavoured to stutter out some
reply, and then, losing control of himself completely, picked up all
his loose papers and strode out of the room, dropping pamphlets and
speeches at every step. This incident amused the company so much that
they laughed for several minutes without cessation. Gradually the
sound of their laughter sounded more and more harshly in my ears, the
lights on the table grew dim and the company more misty, until they
and their symposium vanished away altogether. I was sitting before the
embers of what had been a roaring fire, but was now little more than a
heap of grey ashes, and the merry laughter of the august company had
changed to the recriminations of my wife, who was shaking me violently
by the shoulder and exhorting me to choose some more seasonable spot
for my slumbers. So ended the wondrous adventures of Master Cyprian
Overbeck Wells, but I still live in the hopes that in some future
dream the great masters may themselves finish that which they have
begun.



PLAYING WITH FIRE

I cannot pretend to say what occurred on the 14th of April last at No.
17, Badderly Gardens. Put down in black and white, my surmise might
seem too crude, too grotesque, for serious consideration. And yet that
something did occur, and that it was of a nature which will leave its
mark upon every one of us for the rest of our lives, is as certain as
the unanimous testimony of five witnesses can make it. I will not
enter into any argument or speculation. I will only give a plain
statement, which will be submitted to John Moir, Harvey Deacon, and
Mrs. Delamere, and withheld from publication unless they are prepared
to corroborate every detail. I cannot obtain the sanction of Paul Le
Duc, for he appears to have left the country.

It was John Moir (the well-known senior partner of Moir, Moir, and
Sanderson) who had originally turned our attention to occult subjects.
He had, like many very hard and practical men of business, a mystic
side to his nature, which had led him to the examination, and
eventually to the acceptance, of those elusive phenomena which are
grouped together with much that is foolish, and much that is
fraudulent, under the common heading of spiritualism. His researches,
which had begun with an open mind, ended unhappily in dogma, and he
became as positive and fanatical as any other bigot. He represented in
our little group the body of men who have turned these singular
phenomena into a new religion.

Mrs. Delamere, our medium, was his sister, the wife of Delamere, the
rising sculptor. Our experience had shown us that to work on these
subjects without a medium was as futile as for an astronomer to make
observations without a telescope. On the other hand, the introduction
of a paid medium was hateful to all of us. Was it not obvious that he
or she would feel bound to return some result for money received, and
that the temptation to fraud would be an overpowering one? No
phenomena could be relied upon which were produced at a guinea an
hour. But, fortunately, Moir had discovered that his sister was
mediumistic--in other words, that she was a battery of that animal
magnetic force which is the only form of energy which is subtle enough
to be acted upon from the spiritual plane as well as from our own
material one. Of course, when I say this, I do not mean to beg the
question; but I am simply indicating the theories upon which we were
ourselves, rightly or wrongly, explaining what we saw. The lady came,
not altogether with the approval of her husband, and though she never
gave indications of any very great psychic force, we were able, at
least, to obtain those usual phenomena of message-tilting which are at
the same time so puerile and so inexplicable. Every Sunday evening we
met in Harvey Deacon's studio at Badderly Gardens, the next house to
the corner of Merton Park Road.

Harvey Deacon's imaginative work in art would prepare anyone to find
that he was an ardent lover of everything which was /outré/ and
sensational. A certain picturesqueness in the study of the occult had
been the quality which had originally attracted him to it, but his
attention was speedily arrested by some of those phenomena to which I
have referred, and he was coming rapidly to the conclusion that what
he had looked upon as an amusing romance and an after-dinner
entertainment was really a very formidable reality. He is a man with a
remarkably clear and logical brain--a true descendant of his ancestor,
the well-known Scotch professor--and he represented in our small
circle the critical element, the man who has no prejudices, is
prepared to follow facts as far as he can see them, and refuses to
theorise in advance of his data. His caution annoyed Moir as much as
the latter's robust faith amused Deacon, but each in his own way was
equally keen upon the matter.

And I? What am I to say that I represented? I was not the devotee. I
was not the scientific critic. Perhaps the best that I can claim for
myself is that I was the dilettante man about town, anxious to be in
the swim of every fresh movement, thankful for any new sensation which
would take me out of myself and open up fresh possibilities of
existence. I am not an enthusiast myself, but I like the company of
those who are. Moir's talk, which made me feel as if we had a private
pass-key through the door of death, filled me with a vague
contentment. The soothing atmosphere of the séance with the darkened
lights was delightful to me. In a word, the thing amused me, and so I
was there.

It was, as I have said, upon the 14th of April last that the very
singular event which I am about to put upon record took place. I was
the first of the men to arrive at the studio, but Mrs. Delamere was
already there, having had afternoon tea with Mrs. Harvey Deacon. The
two ladies and Deacon himself were standing in front of an unfinished
picture of his upon the easel. I am not an expert in art, and I have
never professed to understand what Harvey Deacon meant by his
pictures; but I could see in this instance that it was all very clever
and imaginative, fairies and animals and allegorical figures of all
sorts. The ladies were loud in their praises, and indeed the colour
effect was a remarkable one.

"What do you think of it, Markham?" he asked.

"Well, it's above me," said I. "These beasts--what are they?"

"Mythical monsters, imaginary creatures, heraldic emblems--a sort of
weird, bizarre procession of them."

"With a white horse in front!"

"It's not a horse," said he, rather testily--which was surprising, for
he was a very good-humoured fellow as a rule, and hardly ever took
himself seriously.

"What is it, then?"

"Can't you see the horn in front? It's a unicorn. I told you they were
heraldic beasts. Can't you recognize one?"

"Very sorry, Deacon," said I, for he really seemed to be annoyed.

He laughed at his own irritation.

"Excuse me, Markham!" said he; "the fact is that I have had an awful
job over the beast. All day I have been painting him in and painting
him out, and trying to imagine what a real live, ramping unicorn would
look like. At last I got him, as I hoped; so when you failed to
recognise it, it took me on the raw."

"Why, of course it's a unicorn," said I, for he was evidently
depressed at my obtuseness. "I can see the horn quite plainly, but I
never saw a unicorn except beside the Royal Arms, and so I never
thought of the creature. And these others are griffins and
cockatrices, and dragons of sorts?"

"Yes, I had no difficulty with them. It was the unicorn which bothered
me. However, there's an end of it until to-morrow." He turned the
picture round upon the easel, and we all chatted about other subjects.

Moir was late that evening, and when he did arrive he brought with
him, rather to our surprise, a small, stout Frenchman, whom he
introduced as Monsieur Paul Le Duc. I say to our surprise, for we held
a theory that any intrusion into our spiritual circle deranged the
conditions, and introduced an element of suspicion. We knew that we
could trust each other, but all our results were vitiated by the
presence of an outsider. However, Moir soon reconciled us to the
innovation. Monsieur Paul Le Duc was a famous student of occultism, a
seer, a medium, and a mystic. He was travelling in England with a
letter of introduction to Moir from the President of the Parisian
brothers of the Holy Cross. What more natural than that he should
bring him to our little séance, or that we should feel honoured by his
presence?

He was, as I have said, a small, stout man, undistinguished in
appearance, with a broad, smooth, clean-shaven face, remarkable only
for a pair of large, brown, velvety eyes, staring vaguely out in front
of him. He was well dressed, with the manners of the gentleman, and
his curious little turns of English speech set the ladies smiling.
Mrs. Deacon had a prejudice against our researches and left the room,
upon which we lowered the lights, as was our custom, and drew up our
chairs to the square mahogany table which stood in the centre of the
studio. The light was subdued, but sufficient to allow us to see each
other quite plainly. I remember that I could even observe the curious,
podgy little square-topped hands which the Frenchman laid upon the
table.

"What a fun!" said he. "It is many years since I have sat in this
fashion, and it is to me amusing. Madame is medium. Does madame make
the trance?"

"Well, hardly that," said Mrs. Delamere. "But I am always conscious of
extreme sleepiness."

"It is the first stage. Then you encourage it, and there comes the
trance. When the trance comes, then out jumps your little spirit and
in jumps another little spirit, and so you have direct talking or
writing. You leave your machine to be worked by another. /Hein?/ But
what have unicorns to do with it?"

Harvey Deacon started in his chair. The Frenchman was moving his head
slowly round and staring into the shadows which draped the walls.

"What a fun!" said he. "Always unicorns. Who has been thinking so hard
upon a subject so bizarre?"

"This is wonderful!" cried Deacon. "I have been trying to paint one
all day. But how could you know it?"

"You have been thinking of them in this room."

"Certainly."

"But thoughts are things, my friend. When you imagine a thing you make
a thing. You did not know it, /hein?/ But I can see your unicorns
because it is not only with my eye that I can see."

"Do you mean to say that I create a thing which has never existed by
merely thinking of it?"

"But certainly. It is the fact which lies under all other facts. That
is why an evil thought is also a danger."

"They are, I suppose, upon the astral plane?" said Moir.

"Ah, well, these are but words, my friends. They are
there--somewhere--everywhere--I cannot tell myself. I see them. I
could touch them."

"You could not make /us/ see them."

"It is to materialise them. Hold! It is an experiment. But the power
is wanting. Let us see what power we have, and then arrange what we
shall do. May I place you as I wish?"

"You evidently know a great deal more about it than we do," said
Harvey Deacon; "I wish that you would take complete control."

"It may be that the conditions are not good. But we will try what we
can do. Madame will sit where she is, I next, and this gentleman
beside me. Meester Moir will sit next to madame, because it is well to
have blacks and blonds in turn. So! And now with your permission I
will turn the lights all out."

"What is the advantage of the dark?" I asked.

"Because the force with which we deal is a vibration of ether and so
also is light. We have the wires all for ourselves now--/hein?/ You
will not be frightened in the darkness, madame? What a fun is such a
séance!"

At first the darkness appeared to be absolutely pitchy, but in a few
minutes our eyes became so far accustomed to it that we could just
make out each other's presence--very dimly and vaguely, it is true. I
could see nothing else in the room--only the black loom of the
motionless figures. We were all taking the matter much more seriously
than we had ever done before.

"You will place your hands in front. It is hopeless that we touch,
since we are so few round so large a table. You will compose yourself,
madame, and if sleep should come to you you will not fight against it.
And now we sit in silence and we expect--/hein?/"

So we sat in silence and expected, staring out into the blackness in
front of us. A clock ticked in the passage. A dog barked
intermittently far away. Once or twice a cab rattled past in the
street, and the gleam of its lamps through the chink in the curtains
was a cheerful break in that gloomy vigil. I felt those physical
symptoms with which previous séances had made me familiar--the
coldness of the feet, the tingling in the hands, the glow of the
palms, the feeling of a cold wind upon the back. Strange little
shooting pains came in my forearms, especially as it seemed to me in
my left one, which was nearest to our visitor--due no doubt to
disturbance of the vascular system, but worthy of some attention all
the same. At the same time I was conscious of a strained feeling of
expectancy which was almost painful. From the rigid, absolute silence
of my companions I gathered that their nerves were as tense as my own.

And then suddenly a sound came out of the darkness--a low, sibilant
sound, the quick, thin breathing of a woman. Quicker and thinner yet
it came, as between clenched teeth, to end in a loud gasp with a dull
rustle of cloth.

"What's that? Is all right?" someone asked in the darkness.

"Yes, all is right," said the Frenchman. "It is madame. She is in her
trance. Now, gentlemen, if you will wait quiet you will see something,
I think, which will interest you much."

Still the ticking in the hall. Still the breathing, deeper and fuller
now, from the medium. Still the occasional flash, more welcome than
ever, of the passing lights of the hansoms. What a gap we were
bridging, the half-raised veil of the eternal on the one side and the
cabs of London on the other. The table was throbbing with a mighty
pulse. It swayed steadily, rhythmically, with an easy swooping,
scooping motion under our fingers. Sharp little raps and cracks came
from its substance, file-firing, volley-firing, the sounds of a fagot
burning briskly on a frosty night.

"There is much power," said the Frenchman. "See it on the table!"

I had thought it was some delusion of my own, but all could see it
now. There was a greenish-yellow phosphorescent light--or I should say
a luminous vapour rather than a light--which lay over the surface of
the table. It rolled and wreathed and undulated in dim glimmering
folds, turning and swirling like clouds of smoke. I could see the
white, square-ended hands of the French medium in this baleful light.

"What a fun!" he cried. "It is splendid!"

"Shall we call the alphabet?" asked Moir.

"But no--for we can do much better," said our visitor. "It is but a
clumsy thing to tilt the table for every letter of the alphabet, and
with such a medium as madame we should do better than that."

"Yes, you will do better," said a voice.

"Who was that? Who spoke? Was that you, Markham?"

"No, I did not speak."

"It was madame who spoke."

"But it was not her voice."

"Is that you, Mrs. Delamere?"

"It is not the medium, but it is the power which uses the organs of
the medium," said the strange, deep voice.

"Where is Mrs. Delamere? It will not hurt her, I trust."

"The medium is happy in another plane of existence. She has taken my
place, as I have taken hers."

"Who are you?"

"It cannot matter to you who I am. I am one who has lived as you are
living, and who has died as you will die."

We heard the creak and grate of a cab pulling up next door. There was
an argument about the fare, and the cabman grumbled hoarsely down the
street. The green-yellow cloud still swirled faintly over the table,
dull elsewhere, but glowing into a dim luminosity in the direction of
the medium. It seemed to be piling itself up in front of her. A sense
of fear and cold struck into my heart. It seemed to me that lightly
and flippantly we had approached the most real and august of
sacraments, that communion with the dead of which the fathers of the
Church had spoken.

"Don't you think we are going too far? Should we not break up this
séance?" I cried.

But the others were all earnest to see the end of it. They laughed at
my scruples.

"All the powers are made for use," said Harvey Deacon. "If we /can/ do
this, we /should/ do this. Every new departure of knowledge has been
called unlawful in its inception. It is right and proper that we
should inquire into the nature of death."

"It is right and proper," said the voice.

"There, what more could you ask?" cried Moir, who was much excited.
"Let us have a test. Will you give us a test that you are really
there?"

"What test do you demand?"

"Well, now--I have some coins in my pocket. Will you tell me how
many?"

"We come back in the hope of teaching and of elevating, and not to
guess childish riddles."

"Ha, ha, Meester Moir, you catch it that time," cried the Frenchman.
"But surely this is very good sense what the Control is saying."

"It is a religion, not a game," said the cold, hard voice.

"Exactly--the very view I take of it," cried Moir. "I am sure I am
very sorry if I have asked a foolish question. You will not tell me
who you are?"

"What does it matter?"

"Have you been a spirit long?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"We cannot reckon time as you do. Our conditions are different."

"Are you happy?"

"Yes."

"You would not wish to come back to life?"

"No--certainly not."

"Are you busy?"

"We could not be happy if we were not busy."

"What do you do?"

"I have said that the conditions are entirely different."

"Can you give us no idea of your work?"

"We labour for our own improvement and for the advancement of others."

"Do you like coming here to-night?"

"I am glad to come if I can do any good by coming."

"Then to do good is your object?"

"It is the object of all life on every plane."

"You see, Markham, that should answer your scruples."

It did, for my doubts had passed and only interest remained.

"Have you pain in your life?" I asked.

"No; pain is a thing of the body."

"Have you mental pain?"

"Yes; one may always be sad or anxious."

"Do you meet the friends whom you have known on earth?"

"Some of them."

"Why only some of them?"

"Only those who are sympathetic."

"Do husbands meet wives?"

"Those who have truly loved."

"And the others?"

"They are nothing to each other."

"There must be a spiritual connection?"

"Of course."

"Is what we are doing right?"

"If done in the right spirit."

"What is the wrong spirit?"

"Curiosity and levity."

"May harm come of that?"

"Very serious harm."

"What sort of harm?"

"You may call up forces over which you have no control."

"Evil forces?"

"Undeveloped forces."

"You say they are dangerous. Dangerous to body or mind?"

"Sometimes to both."

There was a pause, and the blackness seemed to grow blacker still,
while the yellow-green fog swirled and smoked upon the table.

"Any questions you would like to ask, Moir?" said Harvey Deacon.

"Only this--do you pray in your world?"

"One should pray in every world."

"Why?"

"Because it is the acknowledgment of forces outside ourselves."

"What religion do you hold over there?"

"We differ exactly as you do."

"You have no certain knowledge?"

"We have only faith."

"These questions of religion," said the Frenchman, "they are of
interest to you serious English people, but they are not so much fun.
It seems to me that with this power here we might be able to have some
great experience--/hein?/ Something of which we could talk."

"But nothing could be more interesting than this," said Moir.

"Well, if you think so, that is very well," the Frenchman answered,
peevishly. "For my part, it seems to me that I have heard all this
before, and that to-night I should weesh to try some experiment with
all this force which is given to us. But if you have other questions,
then ask them, and when you are finish we can try something more."

But the spell was broken. We asked and asked, but the medium sat
silent in her chair. Only her deep, regular breathing showed that she
was there. The mist still swirled upon the table.

"You have disturbed the harmony. She will not answer."

"But we have learned already all that she can tell--/hein?/ For my
part I wish to see something that I have never seen before."

"What then?"

"You will let me try?"

"What would you do?"

"I have said to you that thoughts are things. Now I wish to /prove/ it
to you, and to show you that which is only a thought. Yes, yes, I can
do it and you will see. Now I ask you only to sit still and say
nothing, and keep ever your hands quiet upon the table."

The room was blacker and more silent than ever. The same feeling of
apprehension which had lain heavily upon me at the beginning of the
séance was back at my heart once more. The roots of my hair were
tingling.

"It is working! It is working!" cried the Frenchman, and there was a
crack in his voice as he spoke which told me that he also was strung
to his tightest.

The luminous fog drifted slowly off the table, and wavered and
flickered across the room. There in the farther and darkest corner it
gathered and glowed, hardening down into a shining core--a strange,
shifty, luminous, and yet non-illuminating patch of radiance, bright
itself, but throwing no rays into the darkness. It had changed from a
greenish-yellow to a dusky sullen red. Then round this centre there
coiled a dark, smoky substance, thickening, hardening, growing denser
and blacker. And then the light went out, smothered in that which had
grown round it.

"It has gone."

"Hush--there's something the room."

We heard it in the corner where the light had been, something which
breathed deeply and fidgeted in the darkness.

"What is it? Le Duc, what you have done?"

"It is all right. No harm will come." The Frenchman's voice was treble
with agitation.

"Good heavens, Moir, there's a large animal in the room. Here it is,
close by my chair! Go away! Go away!"

It was Harvey Deacon's voice, and then came the sound of a blow upon
some hard object. And then . . . And then . . . how can I tell you
what happened then?

Some huge thing hurtled against us in the darkness, rearing, stamping,
smashing, springing, snorting. The table was splintered. We were
scattered in every direction. It clattered and scrambled amongst us,
rushing with horrible energy from one corner of the room to another.
We were all screaming with fear, grovelling upon our hands and knees
to get away from it. Something trod upon my left hand, and I felt the
bones splinter under the weight.

"A light! A light!" someone yelled.

"Moir, you have matches, matches!"

"No, I have none. Deacon, where are the matches? For God's sake, the
matches!"

"I can't find them. Here, you Frenchman, stop it!"

"It is beyond me. Oh, /mon Dieu/, I cannot stop it. The door! Where is
the door?"

My hand, by good luck, lit upon the handle as I groped about in the
darkness. The hard-breathing, snorting, rushing creature tore past me
and butted with a fearful crash against the oaken partition. The
instant that it had passed I turned the handle, and next moment we
were all outside, and the door shut behind us. From within came a
horrible crashing and rending and stamping.

"What is it? In Heaven's name, what is it?"

"A horse. I saw it when the door opened. But Mrs. Delamere----?"

"We must fetch her out. Come on, Markham; the longer we wait the less
we shall like it."

He flung open the door and we rushed in. She was there on the ground
amidst the splinters of her chair. We seized her and dragged her
swiftly out, and as we gained the door I looked over my shoulder into
the darkness. There were two strange eyes glowing at us, a rattle of
hoofs, and I had just time to slam the door when there came a crash
upon it which split it from top to bottom.

"It's coming through! It's coming!"

"Run, run for your lives!" cried the Frenchman.

Another crash, and something shot through the riven door. It was a
long white spike, gleaming in the lamplight. For a moment it shone
before us, and then with a snap it disappeared again.

"Quick! Quick! This way!" Harvey Deacon shouted. "Carry her in! Here!
Quick!"

We had taken refuge in the dining-room, and shut the heavy oak door.
We laid the senseless woman upon the sofa, and as we did so, Moir, the
hard man of business, drooped and fainted across the hearthrug. Harvey
Deacon was as white as a corpse, jerking and twitching like an
epileptic. With a crash we heard the studio door fly to pieces, and
the snorting and stamping were in the passage, up and down, up and
down, shaking the house with their fury. The Frenchman had sunk his
face on his hands, and sobbed like a frightened child.

"What shall we do?" I shook him roughly by the shoulder. "Is a gun any
use?"

"No, no. The power will pass. Then it will end."

"You might have killed us all--you unspeakable fool--with your
infernal experiments."

"I did not know. How could I tell that it would be frightened? It is
mad with terror. It was his fault. He struck it."

Harvey Deacon sprang up. "Good heavens!" he cried.

A terrible scream sounded through the house.

"It's my wife! Here, I'm going out. If it's the Evil One himself I am
going out!"

He had thrown open the door and rushed out into the passage. At the
end of it, at the foot of the stairs, Mrs. Deacon was lying senseless,
struck down by the sight which she had seen. But there was nothing
else.

With eyes of horror we looked about us, but all was perfectly quiet
and still. I approached the black square of the studio door, expecting
with every slow step that some atrocious shape would hurl itself out
of it. But nothing came, and all was silent inside the room. Peeping
and peering, our hearts in our mouths, we came to the very threshold,
and stared into the darkness. There was still no sound, but in one
direction there was also no darkness. A luminous, glowing cloud, with
an incandescent centre, hovered in the corner of the room. Slowly it
dimmed and faded, growing thinner and fainter, until at last the same
dense, velvety blackness filled the whole studio. And with the last
flickering gleam of that baleful light the Frenchman broke into a
shout of joy.

"What a fun!" he cried. "No one is hurt, and only the door broken, and
the ladies frightened. But, my friends, we have done what has never
been done before."

"And as far as I can help," said Harvey Deacon, "it will certainly
never be done again."

And that was what befell on the 14th of April last at No. 17 Badderly
Gardens. I began by saying that it would seem too grotesque to
dogmatise as to what it was which actually did occur; but I give my
impressions, /our/ impressions (since they are corroborated by Harvey
Deacon and John Moir), for what they are worth. You may, if it pleases
you, imagine that we were the victims of an elaborate and
extraordinary hoax. Or you may think with us that we underwent a very
real and a very terrible experience. Or perhaps you may know more than
we do of such occult matters, and can inform us of some similar
occurrence. In this latter case a letter to William Markham, 146M, The
Albany, would help to throw a light upon that which is very dark to
us.



THE RING OF THOTH

Mr. John Vansittart Smith, F.R.S., of 147A Gower Street, was a man
whose energy of purpose and clearness of thought might have placed him
in the very first rank of scientific observers. He was the victim,
however, of a universal ambition which prompted him to aim at
distinction in many subjects rather than pre-eminence in one. In his
early days he had shown an aptitude for zoology and for botany which
caused his friends to look upon him as a second Darwin, but when a
professorship was almost within his reach he had suddenly discontinued
his studies and turned his whole attention to chemistry. Here his
researches upon the spectra of the metals had won him his fellowship
in the Royal Society; but again he played the coquette with his
subject, and after a year's absence from the laboratory he joined the
Oriental Society, and delivered a paper on the Hieroglyphic and
Demotic inscriptions of El Kab, thus giving a crowning example both of
the versatility and of the inconstancy of his talents.

The most fickle of wooers, however, is apt to be caught at last, and
so it was with John Vansittart Smith. The more he burrowed his way
into Egyptology the more impressed he became by the vast field which
it opened to the inquirer, and by the extreme importance of a subject
which promised to throw a light upon the first germs of human
civilisation and the origin of the greater part of our arts and
sciences. So struck was Mr. Smith that he straightway married an
Egyptological young lady who had written upon the sixth dynasty, and
having thus secured a sound base of operations he set himself to
collect materials for a work which should unite the research of
Lepsius and the ingenuity of Champollion. The preparation of this
/magnum opus/ entailed many hurried visits to the magnificent Egyptian
collections of the Louvre, upon the last of which, no longer ago than
the middle of last October, he became involved in a most strange and
noteworthy adventure.

The trains had been slow and the Channel had been rough, so that the
student arrived in Paris in a somewhat befogged and feverish
condition. On reaching the Hôtel de France, in the Rue Laffitte, he
had thrown himself upon a sofa for a couple of hours, but finding that
he was unable to sleep, he determined, in spite of his fatigue, to
make his way to the Louvre, settle the point which he had come to
decide, and take the evening train back to Dieppe. Having come to his
conclusion, he donned his greatcoat, for it was a raw rainy day, and
made his way across the Boulevard des Italiens and down the Avenue de
l'Opéra. Once in the Louvre he was on familiar ground, and he speedily
made his way to the collection of papyri which it was his intention to
consult.

The warmest admirers of John Vansittart Smith could hardly claim for
him that he was a handsome man. His high-beaked nose and prominent
chin had something of the same acute and incisive character which
distinguished his intellect. He held his head in a birdlike fashion,
and birdlike, too, was the pecking motion with which, in conversation,
he threw out his objections and retorts. As he stood, with the high
collar of his greatcoat raised to his ears, he might have seen from
the reflection in the glass-case before him that his appearance was a
singular one. Yet it came upon him as a sudden jar when an English
voice behind him exclaimed in very audible tones, "What a
queer-looking mortal!"

The student had a large amount of petty vanity in his composition
which manifested itself by an ostentatious and overdone disregard of
all personal considerations. He straightened his lips and looked
rigidly at the roll of papyrus, while his heart filled with bitterness
against the whole race of travelling Britons.

"Yes," said another voice, "he really is an extraordinary fellow."

"Do you know," said the first speaker, "one could almost believe that
by the continual contemplation of mummies the chap has become half a
mummy himself?"

"He has certainly an Egyptian cast of countenance," said the other.

John Vansittart Smith spun round upon his heel with the intention of
shaming his countrymen by a corrosive remark or two. To his surprise
and relief, the two young fellows who had been conversing had their
shoulders turned towards him, and were gazing at one of the Louvre
attendants who was polishing some brass-work at the other side of the
room.

"Carter will be waiting for us at the Palais Royal," said one tourist
to the other, glancing at his watch, and they clattered away, leaving
the student to his labours.

"I wonder what these chatterers call an Egyptian cast of countenance,"
thought John Vansittart Smith, and he moved his position slightly in
order to catch a glimpse of the man's face. He started as his eyes
fell upon it. It was indeed the very face with which his studies had
made him familiar. The regular statuesque features, broad brow,
well-rounded chin, and dusky complexion were the exact counterpart of
the innumerable statues, mummy-cases, and pictures which adorned the
walls of the apartment. The thing was beyond all coincidence. The man
must be an Egyptian. The national angularity of the shoulders and
narrowness of the hips were alone sufficient to identify him.

John Vansittart Smith shuffled towards the attendant with some
intention of addressing him. He was not light of touch in
conversation, and found it difficult to strike the happy mean between
the brusqueness of the superior and the geniality of the equal. As he
came nearer, the man presented his side face to him, but kept his gaze
still bent upon his work. Vansittart Smith, fixing his eyes upon the
fellow's skin, was conscious of a sudden impression that there was
something inhuman and preternatural about its appearance. Over the
temple and cheek-bone it was as glazed and as shiny as varnished
parchment. There was no suggestion of pores. One could not fancy a
drop of moisture upon that arid surface. From brow to chin, however,
it was cross-hatched by a million delicate wrinkles, which shot and
interlaced as though Nature in some Maori mood had tried how wild and
intricate a pattern she could devise.

"Où est la collection de Memphis?" asked the student, with the awkward
air of a man who is devising a question merely for the purpose of
opening a conversation.

"C'est là ," replied the man brusquely, nodding his head at the other
side of the room.

"Vous êtes un Egyptien, n'est-ce pas?" asked the Englishman.

The attendant looked up and turned his strange dark eyes upon his
questioner. They were vitreous, with a misty dry shininess, such as
Smith had never seen in a human head before. As he gazed into them he
saw some strong emotion gather in their depths, which rose and
deepened until it broke into a look of something akin both to horror
and to hatred.

"Non, monsieur; je suis français." The man turned abruptly and bent
low over his polishing. The student gazed at him for a moment in
astonishment, and then turning to a chair in a retired corner behind
one of the doors he proceeded to make notes of his researches among
the papyri. His thoughts, however, refused to return into their
natural groove. They would run upon the enigmatical attendant with the
sphinx-like face and the parchment skin.

"Where have I seen such eyes?" said Vansittart Smith to himself.
"There is something saurian about them, something reptilian. There's
the membrana nictitans of the snakes," he mused, bethinking himself of
his zoological studies. "It gives a shiny effect. But there was
something more here. There was a sense of power, of wisdom--so I read
them--and of weariness, utter weariness, and ineffable despair. It may
be all imagination, but I never had so strong an impression. By Jove,
I must have another look at them!" He rose and paced round the
Egyptian rooms, but the man who had excited his curiosity had
disappeared.

The student sat down again in his quiet corner, and continued to work
at his notes. He had gained the information which he required from the
papyri, and it only remained to write it down while it was still fresh
in his memory. For a time his pencil travelled rapidly over the paper,
but soon the lines became less level, the words more blurred, and
finally the pencil tinkled down upon the floor, and the head of the
student dropped heavily forward upon his chest. Tired out by his
journey, he slept so soundly in his lonely post behind the door that
neither the clanking civil guard, nor the footsteps of sightseers, nor
even the loud hoarse bell which gives the signal for closing, were
sufficient to arouse him.

Twilight deepened into darkness, the bustle from the Rue de Rivoli
waxed and then waned, distant Notre Dame clanged out the hour of
midnight, and still the dark and lonely figure sat silently in the
shadow. It was not until close upon one in the morning that, with a
sudden gasp and an intaking of the breath, Vansittart Smith returned
to consciousness. For a moment it flashed upon him that he had dropped
asleep in his study-chair at home. The moon was shining fitfully
through the unshuttered window, however, and as his eye ran along the
lines of mummies and the endless array of polished cases, he
remembered clearly where he was and how he came there. The student was
not a nervous man. He possessed that love of a novel situation which
is peculiar to his race. Stretching out his cramped limbs, he looked
at his watch, and burst into a chuckle as he observed the hour. The
episode would make an admirable anecdote to be introduced into his
next paper as a relief to the graver and heavier speculations. He was
a little cold, but wide awake and much refreshed. It was no wonder
that the guardians had overlooked him, for the door threw its heavy
black shadow right across him.

The complete silence was impressive. Neither outside nor inside was
there a creak or a murmur. He was alone with the dead men of a dead
civilisation. What though the outer city reeked of the garish
nineteenth century! In all this chamber there was scarce an article,
from the shrivelled ear of wheat to the pigment-box of the painter,
which had not held its own against four thousand years. Here was the
flotsam and jetsam washed up by the great ocean of time from that
far-off empire. From stately Thebes, from lordly Luxor, from the great
temples of Heliopolis, from a hundred rifled tombs, these relics had
been brought. The student glanced round at the long-silent figures who
flickered vaguely up through the gloom, at the busy toilers who were
now so restful, and he fell into a reverent and thoughtful mood. An
unwonted sense of his own youth and insignificance came over him.
Leaning back in his chair, he gazed dreamily down the long vista of
rooms, all silvery with the moonshine, which extend through the whole
wing of the widespread building. His eyes fell upon the yellow glare
of a distant lamp.

John Vansittart Smith sat up on his chair with his nerves all on edge.
The light was advancing slowly towards him, pausing from time to time,
and then coming jerkily onwards. The bearer moved noiselessly. In the
utter silence there was no suspicion of a footfall. An idea of robbers
entered the Englishman's head. He snuggled up farther into the corner.
The light was two rooms off. Now it was in the next chamber, and still
there was no sound. With something approaching to a thrill of fear the
student observed a face, floating in the air as it were, behind the
flare of the lamp. The figure was wrapped in shadow, but the light
fell full upon the strange, eager face. There was no mistaking the
metallic, glistening eyes and the cadaverous skin. It was the
attendant with whom he had conversed.

Vansittart Smith's first impulse was to come forward and address him.
A few words of explanation would set the matter clear, and lead
doubtless to his being conducted to some side-door from which he might
make his way to his hotel. As the man entered the chamber, however,
there was something so stealthy in his movements, and so furtive in
his expression, that the Englishman altered his intention. This was
clearly no ordinary official walking the rounds. The fellow wore
felt-soled slippers, stepped with a rising chest, and glanced quickly
from left to right, while his hurried, gasping breathing thrilled the
flame of his lamp. Vansittart Smith crouched silently back into the
corner and watched him keenly, convinced that his errand was one of
secret and probably sinister import.

There was no hesitation in the other's movements. He stepped lightly
and swiftly across to one of the great cases, and, drawing a key from
his pocket, he unlocked it. From the upper shelf he pulled down a
mummy, which he bore away with him, and laid it with much care and
solicitude upon the ground. By it he placed his lamp, and then
squatting down beside it in Eastern fashion he began with long,
quivering fingers to undo the cerecloths and bandages which girt it
round. As the crackling rolls of linen peeled off one after the other,
a strong aromatic odour filled the chamber, and fragments of scented
wood and of spices pattered down upon the marble floor.

It was clear to John Vansittart Smith that this mummy had never been
unswathed before. The operation interested him keenly. He thrilled all
over with curiosity, and his bird-like head protruded farther and
farther from behind the door. When, however, the last roll had been
removed from the four-thousand-year-old head, it was all that he could
do to stifle an outcry of amazement. First, a cascade of long, black,
glossy tresses poured over the workman's hands and arms. A second turn
of the bandage revealed a low, white forehead, with a pair of
delicately arched eyebrows. A third uncovered a pair of bright, deeply
fringed eyes, and a straight, well-cut nose, while a fourth and last
showed a sweet, full, sensitive mouth, and a beautifully curved chin.
The whole face was one of extraordinary loveliness, save for the one
blemish that in the centre of the forehead there was a single
irregular, coffee-coloured splotch. It was a triumph of the embalmer's
art. Vansittart Smith's eyes grew larger and larger as he gazed upon
it, and he chirruped in his throat with satisfaction.

Its effect upon the Egyptologist was as nothing, however, compared
with that which it produced upon the strange attendant. He threw his
hands up into the air, burst into a harsh clatter of words, and then,
hurling himself down upon the ground beside the mummy, he threw his
arms round her, and kissed her repeatedly upon the lips and brow. "Ma
petite!" he groaned in French. "Ma pauvre petite!" His voice broke
with emotion, and his innumerable wrinkles quivered and writhed, but
the student observed in the lamp-light that his shining eyes were
still dry and tearless as two beads of steel. For some minutes he lay,
with a twitching face, crooning and moaning over the beautiful head.
Then he broke into a sudden smile, said some words in an unknown
tongue, and sprang to his feet with the vigorous air of one who has
braced himself for an effort.

In the centre of the room there was a large, circular case which
contained, as the student had frequently remarked, a magnificent
collection of early Egyptian rings and precious stones. To this the
attendant strode, and, unlocking it, threw it open. On the ledge at
the side he placed his lamp, and beside it a small, earthenware jar
which he had drawn from his pocket. He then took a handful of rings
from the case, and with a most serious and anxious face he proceeded
to smear each in turn with some liquid substance from the earthen pot,
holding them to the light as he did so. He was clearly disappointed
with the first lot, for he threw them petulantly back into the case
and drew out some more. One of these, a massive ring with a large
crystal set in it, he seized and eagerly tested with the contents of
the jar. Instantly he uttered a cry of joy, and threw out his arms in
a wild gesture which upset the pot and set the liquid streaming across
the floor to the very feet of the Englishman. The attendant drew a red
handkerchief from his bosom, and, mopping up the mess, he followed it
into the corner, where in a moment he found himself face to face with
his observer.

"Excuse me," said John Vansittart Smith, with all imaginable
politeness; "I have been unfortunate enough to fall asleep behind this
door."

"And you have been watching me?" the other asked in English, with a
most venomous look on his corpse-like face.

The student was a man of veracity. "I confess," said he, "that I have
noticed your movements, and that they have aroused my curiosity and
interest in the highest degree."

The man drew a long, flamboyant-bladed knife from his bosom. "You have
had a very narrow escape," he said; "had I seen you ten minutes ago, I
should have driven this through your heart. As it is, if you touch me
or interfere with me in any way you are a dead man."

"I have no wish to interfere with you," the student answered. "My
presence here is entirely accidental. All I ask is that you will have
the extreme kindness to show me out through some side-door." He spoke
with great suavity, for the man was still pressing the tip of his
dagger against the palm of his left hand, as though to assure himself
of its sharpness, while his face preserved its malignant expression.

"If I thought----" said he. "But no, perhaps it is as well. What is
your name?"

The Englishman gave it.

"Vansittart Smith," the other repeated. "Are you the same Vansittart
Smith who gave a paper in London upon El Kab? I saw a report of it.
Your knowledge of the subject is contemptible."

"Sir!" cried the Egyptologist.

"Yet it is superior to that of many who make even greater pretensions.
The whole keystone of our old life in Egypt was not the inscriptions
or monuments of which you make so much, but was our hermetic
philosophy and mystic knowledge of which you say little or nothing."

"Our old life!" repeated the scholar, wide-eyed; and then suddenly,
"Good God, look at the mummy's face!"

The strange man turned and flashed his light upon the dead woman,
uttering a long, doleful cry as he did so. The action of the air had
already undone all the art of the embalmer. The skin had fallen away,
the eyes had sunk inwards, the discoloured lips had writhed away from
the yellow teeth, and the brown mark upon the forehead alone showed
that it was indeed the same face which had shown such youth and beauty
a few short minutes before.

The man flapped his hands together in grief and horror. Then mastering
himself by a strong effort he turned his hard eyes once more upon the
Englishman.

"It does not matter," he said, in a shaking voice. "It does not really
matter. I came here to-night with the fixed determination to do
something. It is now done. All else is as nothing. I have found my
quest. The old curse is broken. I can rejoin her. What matter about
her inanimate shell so long as her spirit is awaiting me at the other
side of the veil!"

"These are wild words," said Vansittart Smith. He was becoming more
and more convinced that he had to do with a madman.

"Time presses, and I must go," continued the other. "The moment is at
hand for which I have waited this weary time. But I must show you out
first. Come with me."

Taking up the lamp, he turned from the disordered chamber, and led the
student swiftly through the long series of the Egyptian, Assyrian, and
Persian apartments. At the end of the latter he pushed open a small
door let into the wall and descended a winding, stone stair. The
Englishman felt the cold, fresh air of the night upon his brow. There
was a door opposite him which appeared to communicate with the street.
To the right of this another door stood ajar, throwing a spurt of
yellow light across the passage. "Come in here!" said the attendant
shortly.

Vansittart Smith hesitated. He had hoped that he had come to the end
of his adventure. Yet his curiosity was strong within him. He could
not leave the matter unsolved, so he followed his strange companion
into the lighted chamber.

It was a small room, such as is devoted to a /concierge/. A wood fire
sparkled in the grate. At one side stood a truckle bed, and at the
other a coarse, wooden chair, with a round table in the centre, which
bore the remains of a meal. As the visitor's eye glanced round he
could not but remark with an ever-recurring thrill that all the small
details of the room were of the most quaint design and antique
workmanship. The candlesticks, the vases upon the chimney-piece, the
fire-irons, the ornaments upon the walls, were all such as he had been
wont to associate with the remote past. The gnarled, heavy-eyed man
sat himself down upon the edge of the bed, and motioned his guest into
the chair.

"There may be design in this," he said, still speaking excellent
English. "It may be decreed that I should leave some account behind as
a warning to all rash mortals who would set their wits up against
workings of Nature. I leave it with you. Make such use as you will of
it. I speak to you now with my feet upon the threshold of the other
world.

"I am, as you surmised, an Egyptian--not one of the drown-trodden race
of slaves who now inhabit the Delta of the Nile, but a survivor of
that fiercer and harder people who tamed the Hebrew, drove the
Ethiopian back into the southern deserts, and built those mighty works
which have been the envy and the wonder of all after generations. It
was in the reign of Tuthmosis, sixteen hundred years before the birth
of Christ, that I first saw the light. You shrink away from me. Wait,
and you will see that I am more to be pitied than to be feared.

"My name was Sosra. My father had been the chief priest of Osiris in
the great temple of Abaris, which stood in those days upon the
Bubastic branch of the Nile. I was brought up in the temple and was
trained in all those mystic arts which are spoken of in your own
Bible. I was an apt pupil. Before I was sixteen I had learned all
which the wisest priest could teach me. From that time on I studied
Nature's secrets for myself, and shared my knowledge with no man.

"Of all the questions which attracted me there were none over which I
laboured so long as over those which concern themselves with the
nature of life. I probed deeply into the vital principle. The aim of
medicine had been to drive away disease when it appeared. It seemed to
me that a method might be devised which should so fortify the body as
to prevent weakness or death from ever taking hold of it. It is
useless that I should recount my researches. You would scarce
comprehend them if I did. They were carried out partly upon animals,
partly upon slaves, and partly on myself. Suffice it that their result
was to furnish me with a substance which, when injected into the
blood, would endow the body with strength to resist the effects of
time, of violence, or of disease. It would not indeed confer
immortality, but its potency would endure for many thousands of years.
I used it upon a cat, and afterwards drugged the creature with the
most deadly poisons. That cat is alive in Lower Egypt at the present
moment. There was nothing of mystery or magic in the matter. It was
simply a chemical discovery, which may well be made again.

"Love of life runs high in the young. It seemed to me that I had
broken away from all human care now that I had abolished pain and
driven death to such a distance. With a light heart I poured the
accursed stuff into my veins. Then I looked round for someone whom I
could benefit. There was a young priest of Thoth, Parmes by name, who
had won my goodwill by his earnest nature and his devotion to his
studies. To him I whispered my secret, and at his request I injected
him with my elixir. I should now, I reflected, never be without a
companion of the same age as myself.

"After this grand discovery I relaxed my studies to some extent, but
Parmes continued his with redoubled energy. Every day I could see him
working with his flasks and his distiller in the Temple of Thoth, but
he said little to me as to the result of his labours. For my own part,
I used to walk through the city and look around me with exultation as
I reflected that all this was destined to pass away, and that only I
should remain. The people would bow to me as they passed me, for the
fame of my knowledge had gone abroad.

"There was war at this time, and the Great King had sent down his
soldiers to the eastern boundary to drive away the Hyksos. A Governor,
too, was sent to Abaris, that he might hold it for the King. I had
heard much of the beauty of the daughter of this Governor, but one day
as I walked out with Parmes we met her, borne upon the shoulders of
her slaves. I was struck with love as with lightning. My heart went
out from me. I could have thrown myself beneath the feet of her
bearers. This was my woman. Life without her was impossible. I swore
by the head of Horus that she should be mine. I swore it to the Priest
of Thoth. He turned away from me with a brow which was as black as
midnight.

"There is no need to tell you of our wooing. She came to love me even
as I loved her. I learned that Parmes had seen her before I did, and
had shown her that he, too, loved her, but I could smile at his
passion, for I knew that her heart was mine. The white plague had come
upon the city and many were stricken, but I laid my hands upon the
sick and nursed them without fear or scathe. She marvelled at my
daring. Then I told her my secret, and begged her that she would let
me use my art upon her.

"'Your flower shall then be unwithered, Atma,' I said. 'Other things
may pass away, but you and I, and our great love for each other, shall
outlive the tomb of King Chefru.'

"But she was full of timid, maidenly objections. 'Was it right?' she
asked, 'was it not a thwarting of the will of the gods? If the great
Osiris had wished that our years should be so long, would he not
himself have brought it about?'

"With fond and loving words I overcame her doubts, and yet she
hesitated. It was a great question, she said. She would think it over
for this one night. In the morning I should know of her resolution.
Surely one night was not too much to ask. She wished to pray to Isis
for help in her decision.

"With a sinking heart and a sad foreboding of evil I left her with her
tirewomen. In the morning, when the early sacrifice was over, I
hurried to her house. A frightened slave met me upon the steps. Her
mistress was ill, she said, very ill. In a frenzy I broke my way
through the attendants, and rushed through hall and corridor to my
Atma's chamber. She lay upon her couch, her head high upon the pillow,
with a pallid face and a glazed eye. I knew that hell-mark of old. It
was the scar of the white plague, the sign-manual of death.

"Why should I speak of that terrible time? For months I was mad,
fevered, delirious, and yet I could not die. Never did an Arab thirst
after the sweet wells as I longed after death. Could poison or steel
have shortened the thread of my existence, I should soon have rejoined
my love in the land with the narrow portal. I tried, but it was of no
avail. The accursed influence was too strong upon me. One night as I
lay upon my couch, weak and weary, Parmes, the priest of Thoth, came
to my chamber. He stood in the circle of the lamp-light, and he looked
down upon me with eyes which were bright with a mad joy.

"'Why did you let the maiden die?' he asked; 'why did you not
strengthen her as you strengthened me?'

"'I was too late,' I answered. 'But I had forgot. You also loved her.
You are my fellow in misfortune. Is it not terrible to think of the
centuries which must pass ere we look upon her again? Fools, fools,
that we were to take death to be our enemy!'

"'You may say that,' he cried with a wild laugh; 'the words come well
from your lips. For me they have no meaning.'

"'What mean you?' I cried, raising myself upon my elbow. 'Surely,
friend, this grief has turned your brain.' His face was aflame with
joy, and he writhed and shook like one who hath a devil.

"'Do you know whither I go?' he asked.

"'Nay,' I answered, 'I cannot tell.'

"'I go to her,' said he. 'She lies embalmed in the farther tomb by the
double palm-tree beyond the city wall.'

"'Why do you go there?' I asked.

"'To die!' he shrieked, 'to die! I am not bound by earthen fetters.'

"'But the elixir is in your blood,' I cried.

"'I can defy it,' said he; 'I have found a stronger principle which
will destroy it. It is working in my veins at this moment, and in an
hour I shall be a dead man. I shall join her, and you shall remain
behind.'

"As I looked upon him I could see that he spoke words of truth. The
light in his eye told me that he was indeed beyond the power of the
elixir.

"'You will teach me!' I cried.

"'Never!' he answered.

"'I implore you, by the wisdom of Thoth, by the majesty of Anubis!'

"'It is useless,' he said coldly.

"'Then I will find it out,' I cried.

"'You cannot,' he answered; 'it came to me by chance. There is one
ingredient which you can never get. Save that which is in the ring of
Thoth, none will ever more be made.'

"'In the ring of Thoth!' I repeated, 'where then is the ring of
Thoth?'

"'That also you shall never know,' he answered. 'You won her love. Who
has won in the end? I leave you to your sordid earth life. My chains
are broken. I must go!' He turned upon his heel and fled from the
chamber. In the morning came the news that the Priest of Thoth was
dead.

"My days after that were spent in study. I must find this subtle
poison which was strong enough to undo the elixir. From early dawn to
midnight I bent over the test-tube and the furnace. Above all, I
collected the papyri and the chemical flasks of the Priest of Thoth.
Alas! they taught me little. Here and there some hint or stray
expression would raise hope in my bosom, but no good ever came of it.
Still, month after month, I struggled on. When my heart grew faint I
would make my way to the tomb by the palm-trees. There, standing by
the dead casket from which the jewel had been rifled, I would feel her
sweet presence, and would whisper to her that I would rejoin her if
mortal wit could solve the riddle.

"Parmes had said that his discovery was connected with the ring of
Thoth. I had some remembrance of the trinket. It was a large and
weighty circlet, made, not of gold, but of a rarer and heavier metal
brought from the mines of Mount Harbal. Platinum, you call it. The
ring had, I remembered, a hollow crystal set in it, in which some few
drops of liquid might be stored. Now, the secret of Parmes could not
have to do with the metal alone, for there were many rings of that
metal in the Temple. Was it not more likely that he had stored his
precious poison within the cavity of the crystal? I had scarce come to
this conclusion before, in hunting through his papers, I came upon one
which told me that it was indeed so, and that there was still some of
the liquid unused.

"But how to find the ring? It was not upon him when he was stripped
for the embalmer. Of that I made sure. Neither was it among his
private effects. In vain I searched every room that he had entered,
every box and vase and chattel that he had owned. I sifted the very
sand of the desert in the places where he had been wont to walk; but,
do what I would, I could come upon no traces of the ring of Thoth. Yet
it may be that my labours would have overcome all obstacles had it not
been for a new and unlooked-for misfortune.

"A great war had been waged against the Hyksos, and the Captains of
the Great King had been cut off in the desert, with all their bowmen
and horsemen. The shepherd tribes were upon us like the locusts in a
dry year. From the wilderness of Shur to the great, bitter lake there
was blood by day and fire by night. Abaris was the bulwark of Egypt,
but we could not keep the savages back. The city fell. The Governor
and the soldiers were put to the sword, and I, with many more, was led
away into captivity.

"For years and years I tended cattle in the great plains by the
Euphrates. My master died, and his son grew old, but I was still as
far from death as ever. At last I escaped upon a swift camel, and made
my way back to Egypt. The Hyksos had settled in the land which they
had conquered, and their own King ruled over the country. Abaris had
been torn down, the city had been burned, and of the great Temple
there was nothing left save an unsightly mound. Everywhere the tombs
had been rifled and the monuments destroyed. Of my Atma's grave no
sign was left. It was buried in the sands of the desert, and the
palm-trees which marked the spot had long disappeared. The papers of
Parmes and the remains of the Temple of Thoth were either destroyed or
scattered far and wide over the deserts of Syria. All search after
them was vain.

"From that time I gave up all hope of ever finding the ring or
discovering the subtle drug. I set myself to live as patiently as
might be until the effect of the elixir should wear away. How can you
understand how terrible a thing time is, you who have experience only
of the narrow course which lies between the cradle and the grave! I
know it to my cost, I who have floated down the whole stream of
history. I was old when Ilium fell. I was very old when Herodotus came
to Memphis. I was bowed down with years when the new gospel came upon
the earth. Yet you see me much as other men are, with the cursed
elixir still sweetening my blood, and guarding me against that which I
would court. Now, at last, at last I have come to the end of it!

"I have travelled in all lands and I have dwelt with all nations.
Every tongue is the same to me. I learned them all to help pass the
weary time. I need not tell you how slowly they drifted by, the long
dawn of modern civilization, the dreary middle years, the dark times
of barbarism. They are all behind me now. I have never looked with the
eyes of love upon another woman. Atma knows that I have been constant
to her.

"It was my custom to read all that the scholars had to say upon
Ancient Egypt. I have been in many positions, sometimes affluent,
sometimes poor, but I have always found enough to enable me to buy the
journals which deal with such matters. Some nine months ago I was in
San Francisco, when I read an account of some discoveries made in the
neighbourhood of Abaris. My heart leapt into my mouth as I read it. It
said that the excavator had busied himself in exploring some tombs
recently unearthed. In one there had been found an unopened mummy with
an inscription upon the outer case setting forth that it contained the
body of the daughter of the Governor of the city in the days of
Tuthmosis. It added that on removing the outer case there had been
exposed a large platinum ring set with a crystal, which had been laid
upon the breast of the embalmed woman. This, then, was where Parmes
had hid the ring of Thoth. He might well say that it was safe, for no
Egyptian would ever stain his soul by moving even the outer case of a
buried friend.

"That very night I set off from San Francisco, and in a few weeks I
found myself once more at Abaris, if a few sand-heaps and crumbling
walls may retain the name of the great city. I hurried to the
Frenchmen who were digging there and asked them for the ring. They
replied that both the ring and the mummy had been sent to the Boulak
Museum at Cairo. To Boulak I went, but only to be told that Mariette
Bey had claimed them and had shipped them to the Louvre. I followed
them, and there, at last, in the Egyptian chamber, I came, after close
upon four thousand years, upon the remains of my Atma, and upon the
ring for which I had sought so long.

"But how was I to lay hands upon them? How was I to have them for my
very own? It chanced that the office of attendant was vacant. I went
to the Director. I convinced him that I knew much about Egypt. In my
eagerness I said too much. He remarked that a Professor's chair would
suit me better than a seat in the conciergerie. I knew more, he said,
than he did. It was only by blundering, and letting him think that he
had over-estimated my knowledge, that I prevailed upon him to let me
move the few effects which I have retained into this chamber. It is my
first and my last night here.

"Such is my story, Mr. Vansittart Smith. I need not say more to a man
of your perception. By a strange chance you have this night looked
upon the face of the woman whom I loved in those far-off days. There
were many rings with crystals in the case, and I had to test for the
platinum to be sure of the one which I wanted. A glance at the crystal
has shown me that the liquid is indeed within it, and that I shall at
last be able to shake off that accursed health which has been worse to
me than the foulest disease. I have nothing more to say to you. I have
unburdened myself. You may tell my story or you may withhold it at
your pleasure. The choice rests with you. I owe you some amends, for
you have had a narrow escape of your life this night. I was a
desperate man, and not to be baulked in my purpose. Had I seen you
before the thing was done, I might have put it beyond your power to
oppose me or to raise an alarm. This is the door. It leads into the
Rue de Rivoli. Good night."

The Englishman glanced back. For a moment the lean figure of Sosra the
Egyptian stood framed in the narrow doorway. The next the door
slammed, and the heavy rasping of a bolt broke on the silent night.

It was on the second day after his return to London that Mr. John
Vansittart Smith saw the following concise narrative in the Paris
correspondence of /The Times/:--


"/Curious Occurrence in the Louvre./--Yesterday morning a strange
discovery was made in the principal Eastern chamber. The
/ouvriers/ who are employed to clean out the rooms in the morning
found one of the attendants lying dead upon the floor with his
arms round one of the mummies. So close was his embrace that it
was only with the utmost difficulty that they were separated. One
of the cases containing valuable rings had been opened and rifled.
The authorities are of opinion that the man was bearing away the
mummy with some idea of selling it to a private collector, but
that he was struck down in the very act by long-standing disease
of the heart. It is said that he was a man of uncertain age and
eccentric habits, without any living relations to mourn over his
dramatic and untimely end."



THE LOS AMIGOS FIASCO

I used to be the leading practitioner of Los Amigos. Of course, every
one has heard of the great electrical generating gear there. The town
is widespread, and there are dozens of little townlets and villages
all around, which receive their supply from the same centre, so that
the works are on a very large scale. The Los Amigos folk say that they
are the largest upon earth, but then we claim that for everything in
Los Amigos except the gaol and the death-rate. Those are said to be
the smallest.

Now, with so fine an electrical supply, it seemed to be a sinful waste
of hemp that the Los Amigos criminals should perish in the
old-fashioned manner. And then came the news of the electrocutions in
the East, and how the results had not after all been so instantaneous
as had been hoped. The Western engineers raised their eyebrows when
they read of the puny shocks by which these men had perished, and they
vowed in Los Amigos that when an irreclaimable came their way he
should be dealt handsomely by, and have the run of all the big
dynamos. There should be no reserve, said the engineers, but he should
have all that they had got. And what the result of that would be none
could predict, save that it must be absolutely blasting and deadly.
Never before had a man been so charged with electricity as they would
charge him. He was to be smitten by the essence of ten thunderbolts.
Some prophesied combustion, and some disintegration and disappearance.
They were waiting eagerly to settle the question by actual
demonstration, and it was just at that moment that Duncan Warner came
that way.

Warner had been wanted by the law, and by nobody else, for many years.
Desperado, murderer, train robber and road agent, he was a man beyond
the pale of human pity. He had deserved a dozen deaths, and the Los
Amigos folk grudged him so gaudy a one as that. He seemed to feel
himself to be unworthy of it, for he made two frenzied attempts at
escape. He was a powerful, muscular man, with a lion head, tangled
black locks, and a sweeping beard which covered his broad chest. When
he was tried, there was no finer head in all the crowded court. It's
no new thing to find the best face looking from the dock. But his good
looks could not balance his bad deeds. His advocate did all he knew,
but the cards lay against him, and Duncan Warner was handed over to
the mercy of the big Los Amigos dynamos.

I was there at the committee meeting when the matter was discussed.
The town council had chosen four experts to look after the
arrangements. Three of them were admirable. There was Joseph M'Connor,
the very man who had designed the dynamos, and there was Joshua
Westmacott, the chairman of the Los Amigos Electrical Supply Company,
Limited. Then there was myself as the chief medical man, and lastly an
old German of the name of Peter Stulpnagel. The Germans were a strong
body at Los Amigos, and they all voted for their man. That was how he
got on the committee. It was said that he had been a wonderful
electrician at home, and he was eternally working with wires and
insulators and Leyden jars; but, as he never seemed to get any
further, or to have any results worth publishing, he came at last to
be regarded as a harmless crank, who had made science his hobby. We
three practical men smiled when we heard that he had been elected as
our colleague, and at the meeting we fixed it all up very nicely among
ourselves without much thought of the old fellow who sat with his ears
scooped forward in his hands, for he was a trifle hard of hearing,
taking no more part in the proceedings than the gentlemen of the press
who scribbled their notes on the back benches.

We did not take long to settle it all. In New York a strength of some
two thousand volts had been used, and death had not been
instantaneous. Evidently their shock had been too weak. Los Amigos
should not fall into that error. The charge should be six times
greater, and therefore, of course, it would be six times more
effective. Nothing could possibly be more logical. The whole
concentrated force of the great dynamos should be employed on Duncan
Warner.

So we three settled it, and had already risen to break up the meeting,
when our silent companion opened his mouth for the first time.

"Gentlemen," said he, "you appear to me to show an extraordinary
ignorance upon the subject of electricity. You have not mastered the
first principles of its actions upon a human being."

The committee was about to break into an angry reply to this brusque
comment, but the chairman of the Electrical Company tapped his
forehead to claim its indulgence for the crankiness of the speaker.

"Pray tell us, sir," said he, with an ironical smile, "what is there
in our conclusions with which you find fault?"

"With your assumption that a large dose of electricity will merely
increase the effect of a small dose. Do you not think it possible that
it might have an entirely different result? Do you know anything, by
actual experiment, of the effect of such powerful shocks?"

"We know it by analogy," said the chairman pompously. "All drugs
increase their effect when they increase their dose; for example--for
example----"

"Whisky," said Joseph M'Connor.

"Quite so. Whisky. You see it there."

Peter Stulpnagel smiled and shook his head.

"Your argument is not very good," said he. "When I used to take
whisky, I used to find that one glass would excite me, but that six
would send me to sleep, which is just the opposite. Now, suppose that
electricity were to act in just the opposite way also, what then?"

We three practical men burst out laughing. We had known that our
colleague was queer, but we never had thought that he would be as
queer as this.

"What then?" repeated Peter Stulpnagel.

"We'll take our chances," said the chairman.

"Pray consider," said Peter, "that workmen who have touched the wires,
and who have received shocks of only a few hundred volts, have died
instantly. The face is well known. And yet when a much greater force
was used upon a criminal at New York, the man struggled for some
little time. Do you not clearly see that the smaller dose is the more
deadly?"

"I think, gentlemen, that this discussion has been carried on quite
long enough," said the chairman, rising again. "The point, I take it,
has already been decided by the majority of the committee, and Duncan
Warner shall be electrocuted on Tuesday by the full strength of the
Los Amigos dynamos. Is it not so?"

"I agree," said Joseph M'Connor.

"I agree," said I.

"And I protest," said Peter Stulpnagel.

"Then the motion is carried, and your protest will be duly entered in
the minutes," said the chairman, and so the sitting was dissolved.

The attendance at the electrocution was a very small one. We four
members of the committee were, of course, present with the
executioner, who was to act under their orders. The others were the
United States Marshal, the governor of the gaol, the chaplain, and
three members of the press. The room was a small, brick chamber,
forming an out-house to the Central Electrical station. It had been
used as a laundry, and had an oven and copper at one side, but no
other furniture save a single chair for the condemned man. A metal
plate for his feet was placed in front of it, to which ran a thick,
insulated wire. Above, another wire depended from the ceiling, which
could be connected with a small, metallic rod projecting from a cap
which was to be placed upon his head. When this connection was
established Duncan Warner's hour was come.

There was a solemn hush as we waited for the coming of the prisoner.
The practical engineers looked a little pale, and fidgeted nervously
with the wires. Even the hardened Marshal was ill at ease, for a mere
hanging was one thing, and this blasting of flesh and blood a very
different one. As to the pressmen, their faces were whiter than the
sheets which lay before them. The only man who appeared to feel none
of the influence of these preparations was the little German crank,
who strolled from one to the other with a smile on his lips and
mischief in his eyes. More than once he even went so far as to burst
into a shout of laughter, until the chaplain sternly rebuked him for
his ill-timed levity.

"How can you so far forget yourself, Mr. Stulpnagel," said he, "as to
jest in the presence of death?"

But the German was quite unabashed.

"If I were in the presence of death I should not jest," said he, "but
since I am not I may do what I choose."

This flippant reply was about to draw another and a sterner reproof
from the chaplain, when the door was swung open and two warders
entered leading Duncan Warner between them. He glanced round him with
a set face, stepped resolutely forward, and seated himself upon the
chair.

"Touch her off!" said he.

It was barbarous to keep him in suspense. The chaplain murmured a few
words in his ear, the attendant placed the cap upon his head, and
then, while we all held our breath, the wire and the metal were
brought in contact.

"Great Scott!" shouted Duncan Warner.

He had bounded in his chair as the frightful shock crashed through his
system. But he was not dead. On the contrary, his eyes gleamed far
more brightly than they had done before. There was only one change,
but it was a singular one. The black had passed from his hair and
beard as the shadow passes from a landscape. They were both as white
as snow. And yet there was no other sign of decay. His skin was smooth
and plump and lustrous as a child's.

The Marshal looked at the committee with a reproachful eye.

"There seems to be some hitch here, gentlemen," said he.

We three practical men looked at each other.

Peter Stulpnagel smiled pensively.

"I think that another one should do it," said I.

Again the connection was made, and again Duncan Warner sprang in his
chair and shouted, but, indeed, were it not that he still remained in
the chair none of us would have recognised him. His hair and his beard
had shredded off in an instant, and the room looked like a barber's
shop on a Saturday night. There he sat, his eyes still shining, his
skin radiant with the glow of perfect health, but with a scalp as bald
as a Dutch cheese, and a chin without so much as a trace of down. He
began to revolve one of his arms, slowly and doubtfully at first, but
with more confidence as he went on.

"That jint," said he, "has puzzled half the doctors on the Pacific
Slope. It's as good as new, and as limber as a hickory twig."

"You are feeling pretty well?" asked the old German.

"Never better in my life," said Duncan Warner cheerily.

The situation was a painful one. The Marshal glared at the committee.
Peter Stulpnagel grinned and rubbed his hands. The engineers scratched
their heads. The bald-headed prisoner revolved his arm and looked
pleased.

"I think that one more shock----" began the chairman.

"No, sir," said the Marshal; "we've had foolery enough for one
morning. We are here for an execution, and an execution we'll have."

"What do you propose?"

"There's a hook handy upon the ceiling. Fetch a rope, and we'll soon
set this matter straight."

There was another awkward delay while the warders departed for the
cord. Peter Stulpnagel bent over Duncan Warner, and whispered
something in his ear. The desperado stared in surprise.

"You don't say?" he asked.

The German nodded.

"What! No ways?"

Peter shook his head, and the two began to laugh as though they shared
some huge joke between them.

The rope was brought, and the Marshal himself slipped the noose over
the criminal's neck. Then the two warders, the assistant and he swung
their victim into the air. For half an hour he hung--a dreadful
sight--from the ceiling. Then in solemn silence they lowered him down,
and one of the warders went out to order the shell to be brought
round. But as he touched ground again what was our amazement when
Duncan Warner put his hands up to his neck, loosened the noose, and
took a long, deep breath.

"Paul Jefferson's sale is goin' well," he remarked. "I could see the
crowd from up yonder," and he nodded at the hook in the ceiling.

"Up with him again!" shouted the Marshal, "we'll get the life out of
him somehow."

In an instant the victim was up at the hook once more.

They kept him there for an hour, but when he came down he was
perfectly garrulous.

"Old man Plunket goes too much to the Arcady Saloon," said he. "Three
times he's been there in an hour; and him with a family. Old man
Plunket would do well to swear off."

It was monstrous and incredible, but there it was. There was no
getting round it. The man was there talking when he ought to have been
dead. We all sat staring in amazement, but United States Marshal
Carpenter was not a man to be euchred so easily. He motioned the
others to one side, so that the prisoner was left standing alone.

"Duncan Warner," said he slowly, "you are here to play your part, and
I am here to play mine. Your game is to live if you can, and my game
is to carry out the sentence of the law. You've beat us on
electricity. I'll give you one there. And you've beat us on hanging,
for you seem to thrive on it. But it's my turn to beat you now, for my
duty has to be done."

He pulled a six-shooter from his coat as he spoke, and fired all the
shots through the body of the prisoner. The room was so filled with
smoke that we could see nothing, but when it cleared the prisoner was
still standing there, looking down in disgust at the front of his
coat.

"Coats must be cheap where you come from," said he. "Thirty dollars it
cost me, and look at it now. The six holes in front are bad enough,
but four of the balls have passed out, and a pretty fine state the
back must be in."

The Marshal's revolver fell from his hand, and he dropped his arms to
his sides, a beaten man.

"Maybe some of you gentlemen can tell me what this means," said he,
looking helplessly at the committee.

Peter Stulpnagel took a step forward.

"I'll tell you all about it," said he.

"You seem to be the only person who knows anything."

"I /am/ the only person who knows anything. I should have warned these
gentlemen; but, as they would not listen to me, I have allowed them to
learn by experience. What you have done with your electricity is that
you have increased the man's vitality until he can defy death for
centuries."

"Centuries!"

"Yes, it will take the wear of hundreds of years to exhaust the
enormous nervous energy with which you have drenched him. Electricity
is life, and you have charged him with it to the utmost. Perhaps in
fifty years you might execute him, but I am not sanguine about it."

"Great Scott! What shall I do with him?" cried the unhappy Marshal.

Peter Stulpnagel shrugged his shoulders.

"It seems to me that it does not much matter what you do with him
now," said he.

"Maybe we could drain the electricity out of him again. Suppose we
hang him up by the heels?"

"No, no, it's out of the question."

"Well, well, he shall do no more mischief in Los Amigos, anyhow," said
the Marshal, with decision. "He shall go into the new gaol. The prison
will wear him out."

"On the contrary," said Peter Stulpnagel, "I think that it is much
more probable that he will wear out the prison."

It was rather a fiasco, and for years we didn't talk more about it
than we could help, but it's no secret now, and I thought you might
like to jot down the facts in your case-book.



HOW IT HAPPENED

She was a writing medium. This is what she wrote:--

I can remember some things upon that evening most distinctly, and
others are like some vague, broken dreams. That is what makes it so
difficult to tell a connected story. I have no idea now what it was
that had taken me to London and brought me back so late. It just
merges into all my other visits to London. But from the time that I
got out at the little country station everything is extraordinarily
clear. I can live it again--every instant of it.

I remember so well walking down the platform and looking at the
illuminated clock at the end which told me that it was half-past
eleven. I remember also my wondering whether I could get home before
midnight. Then I remember the big motor, with its glaring headlights
and glitter of polished brass, waiting for me outside. It was my new
thirty-horse-power Robur, which had only been delivered that day. I
remember also asking Perkins, my chauffeur, how she had gone, and his
saying that he thought she was excellent.

"I'll try her myself," said I, and I climbed into the driver's seat.

"The gears are not the same," said he. "Perhaps, sir, I had better
drive."

"No; I should like to try her," said I.

And so we started on the five-mile drive for home.

My old car had the gears as they used always to be in notches on a
bar. In this car you passed the gear-lever through a gate to get on
the higher ones. It was not difficult to master, and soon I thought
that I understood it. It was foolish, no doubt, to begin to learn a
new system in the dark, but one often does foolish things, and one has
not always to pay the full price for them. I got along very well until
I came to Claystall Hill. It is one of the worst hills in England, a
mile and a half long and one in six in places, with three fairly sharp
curves. My park gate stands at the very foot of it upon the main
London road.

We were just over the brow of this hill, where the grade is steepest,
when the trouble began. I had been on the top speed, and wanted to get
her on the free; but she stuck between gears, and I had to get her
back on the top again. By this time she was going at a great rate, so
I clapped on both brakes, and one after the other they gave way. I
didn't mind so much when I felt my footbrake snap, but when I put all
my weight on my side-brake, and the lever clanged to its full limit
without a catch, it brought a cold sweat out of me. By this time we
were fairly tearing down the slope. The lights were brilliant, and I
brought her round the first curve all right. Then we did the second
one, though it was a close shave for the ditch. There was a mile of
straight then with the third curve beneath it, and after that the gate
of the park. If I could shoot into that harbour all would be well, for
the slope up to the house would bring her to a stand.

Perkins behaved splendidly. I should like that to be known. He was
perfectly cool and alert. I had thought at the very beginning of
taking the bank, and he read my intention.

"I wouldn't do it, sir," said he. "At this pace it must go over and we
should have it on the top of us."

Of course he was right. He got to the electric switch and had it off,
so we were in the free; but we were still running at a fearful pace.
He laid his hands on the wheel.

"I'll keep her steady," said he, "if you care to jump and chance it.
We can never get round that curve. Better jump, sir."

"No," said I; "I'll stick it out. You can jump if you like."

"I'll stick it with you, sir," said he.

If it had been the old car I should have jammed the gear-lever into
the reverse, and seen what would happen. I expect she would have
stripped her gears or smashed up somehow, but it would have been a
chance. As it was, I was helpless. Perkins tried to climb across, but
you couldn't do it going at that pace. The wheels were whirring like a
high wind and the big body creaking and groaning with the strain. But
the lights were brilliant, and one could steer to an inch. I remember
thinking what an awful and yet majestic sight we should appear to
anyone who met us. It was a narrow road, and we were just a great,
roaring, golden death to anyone who came in our path.

We got round the corner with one wheel three feet high upon the bank.
I thought we were surely over, but after staggering for a moment she
righted and darted onwards. That was the third corner and the last
one. There was only the park gate now. It was facing us, but, as luck
would have it, not facing us directly. It was about twenty yards to
the left up the main road into which we ran. Perhaps I could have done
it, but I expect that the steering-gear had been jarred when we ran on
the bank. The wheel did not turn easily. We shot out of the lane. I
saw the open gate on the left. I whirled round my wheel with all the
strength of my wrists. Perkins and I threw our bodies across, and then
the next instant, going at fifty miles an hour, my right wheel struck
full on the right-hand pillar of my own gate. I heard the crash. I was
conscious of flying through the air, and then--and then----!



When I became aware of my own existence once more I was among some
brushwood in the shadow of the oaks upon the lodge side of the drive.
A man was standing beside me. I imagined at first that it was Perkins,
but when I looked again I saw that it was Stanley, a man whom I had
known at college some years before, and for whom I had a really
genuine affection. There was always something peculiarly sympathetic
to me in Stanley's personality; and I was proud to think that I had
some similar influence upon him. At the present moment I was surprised
to see him, but I was like a man in a dream, giddy and shaken and
quite prepared to take things as I found them without questioning
them.

"What a smash!" I said. "Good Lord, what an awful smash!"

He nodded his head, and even in the gloom I could see that he was
smiling the gentle, wistful smile which I connected with him.

I was quite unable to move. Indeed, I had not any desire to try to
move. But my senses were exceedingly alert. I saw the wreck of the
motor lit up by the moving lanterns. I saw the little group of people
and heard the hushed voices. There were the lodge-keeper and his wife,
and one or two more. They were taking no notice of me, but were very
busy round the car. Then suddenly I heard a cry of pain.

"The weight is on him. Lift it easy," cried a voice.

"It's only my leg!" said another one, which I recognised as Perkins's.
"Where's master?" he cried.

"Here I am," I answered, but they did not seem to hear me. They were
all bending over something which lay in front of the car.

Stanley laid his hand upon my shoulder, and his touch was
inexpressibly soothing. I felt light and happy, in spite of all.

"No pain, of course?" said he.

"None," said I.

"There never is," said he.

And then suddenly a wave of amazement passed over me. Stanley!
Stanley! Why, Stanley had surely died of enteric at Bloemfontein in
the Boer War!

"Stanley!" I cried, and the words seemed to choke my throat--"Stanley,
you are dead."

He looked at me with the same old gentle, wistful smile.

"So are you," he answered.



LOT NO. 249

Of the dealings of Edward Bellingham with William Monkhouse Lee, and
of the cause of the great terror of Abercrombie Smith, it may be that
no absolute and final judgment will ever be delivered. It is true that
we have the full and clear narrative of Smith himself, and such
corroboration as he could look for from Thomas Styles the servant,
from the Reverend Plumptree Peterson, Fellow of Old's, and from such
other people as chanced to gain some passing glance at this or that
incident in a singular chain of events. Yet, in the main, the story
must rest upon Smith alone, and the most will think that it is more
likely that one brain, however outwardly sane, has some subtle warp in
its texture, some strange flaw in its workings, than that the path of
Nature has been overstepped in open day in so famed a centre of
learning and light as the University of Oxford. Yet when we think how
narrow and how devious this path of Nature is, how dimly we can trace
it, for all our lamps of science, and how from the darkness which
girds it round great and terrible possibilities loom ever shadowly
upwards, it is a bold and confident man who will put a limit to the
strange by-paths into which the human spirit may wander.

In a certain wing of what we will call Old College in Oxford there is
a corner turret of an exceeding great age. The heavy arch which spans
the open door has bent downwards in the centre under the weight of its
years, and the grey, lichen-blotched blocks of stone are bound and
knitted together with withes and strands of ivy, as though the old
mother had set herself to brace them up against wind and weather. From
the door a stone stair curves upward spirally, passing two landings,
and terminating in a third one, its steps all shapeless and hollowed
by the tread of so many generations of the seekers after knowledge.
Life has flowed like water down this winding stair, and, waterlike,
has left these smooth-worn grooves behind it. From the long-gowned,
pedantic scholars of Plantagenet days down to the young bloods of a
later age, how full and strong has been that tide of young, English
life. And what was left now of all those hopes, those strivings, those
fiery energies, save here and there in some old-world churchyard a few
scratches upon a stone, and perchance a handful of dust in a
mouldering coffin? Yet here were the silent stair and the grey, old
wall, with bend and saltire and many another heraldic device still to
be read upon its surface, like grotesque shadows thrown back from the
days that had passed.

In the month of May, in the year 1884, three young men occupied the
sets of rooms which opened on to the separate landings of the old
stair. Each set consisted simply of a sitting-room and of a bedroom,
while the two corresponding rooms upon the ground-floor were used, the
one as a coal-cellar, and the other as the living-room of the servant,
or scout, Thomas Styles, whose duty it was to wait upon the three men
above him. To right and to left was a line of lecture-rooms and of
offices, so that the dwellers in the old turret enjoyed a certain
seclusion, which made the chambers popular among the more studious
undergraduates. Such were the three who occupied them now--Abercrombie
Smith above, Edward Bellingham beneath him, and William Monkhouse Lee
upon the lowest storey.

It was ten o'clock on a bright, spring night, and Abercrombie Smith
lay back in his arm-chair, his feet upon the fender, and his
briar-root pipe between his lips. In a similar chair, and equally at
his ease, there lounged on the other side of the fireplace his old
school friend Jephro Hastie. Both men were in flannels, for they had
spent their evening upon the river, but apart from their dress no one
could look at their hard-cut, alert faces without seeing that they
were open-air men--men whose minds and tastes turned naturally to all
that was manly and robust. Hastie, indeed, was stroke of his college
boat, and Smith was an even better oar, but a coming examination had
already cast its shadow over him and held him to his work, save for a
few hours a week which health demanded. A litter of medical books upon
the table, with scattered bones, models, and anatomical plates,
pointed to the extent as well as the nature of his studies, while a
couple of single-sticks and a set of boxing-gloves above the
mantelpiece hinted at the means by which, with Hastie's help, he might
take his exercise in its most compressed and least-distant form. They
knew each other very well--so well that they could sit now in that
soothing silence which is the very highest development of
companionship.

"Have some whisky," said Abercrombie Smith at last between two
cloudbursts. "Scotch in the jug and Irish in the bottle."

"No, thanks. I'm in for the sculls. I don't liquor when I'm training.
How about you?"

"I'm reading hard. I think it best to leave it alone."

Hastie nodded, and they relapsed into a contented silence.

"By the way, Smith," asked Hastie, presently, "have you made the
acquaintance of either of the fellows on your stair yet?"

"Just a nod when we pass. Nothing more."

"Hum! I should be inclined to let it stand at that. I know something
of them both. Not much, but as much as I want. I don't think I should
take them to my bosom if I were you. Not that there's much amiss with
Monkhouse Lee."

"Meaning the thin one?"

"Precisely. He is a gentlemanly little fellow. I don't think there is
any vice in him. But then you can't know him without knowing
Bellingham."

"Meaning the fat one?"

"Yes, the fat one. And he's a man whom I, for one, would rather not
know."

Abercrombie Smith raised his eyebrows and glanced across at his
companion.

"What's up, then?" he asked. "Drink? Cards? Cad? You used not to be
censorious."

"Ah! you evidently don't know the man, or you wouldn't ask. There's
something damnable about him--something reptilian. My gorge always
rises at him. I should put him down as a man with secret vices--an
evil liver. He's no fool, though. They say that he is one of the best
men in his line that they have ever had in the college."

"Medicine or classics?"

"Eastern languages. He's a demon at them. Chillingworth met him
somewhere above the second cataract last long, and he told me that he
just prattled to the Arabs as if he had been born and nursed and
weaned among them. He talked Coptic to the Copts, and Hebrew to the
Jews, and Arabic to the Bedouins, and they were all ready to kiss the
hem of his frock-coat. There are some old hermit Johnnies up in those
parts who sit on rocks and scowl and spit at the casual stranger.
Well, when they saw this chap Bellingham, before he had said five
words they just lay down on their bellies and wriggled. Chillingworth
said that he never saw anything like it. Bellingham seemed to take it
as his right, too, and strutted about among them and talked down to
them like a Dutch uncle. Pretty good for an undergrad. of Old's,
wasn't it?"

"Why do you say you can't know Lee without knowing Bellingham?"

"Because Bellingham is engaged to his sister Eveline. Such a bright
little girl, Smith! I know the whole family well. It's disgusting to
see that brute with her. A toad and a dove, that's what they always
remind me of."

Abercrombie Smith grinned and knocked his ashes out against the side
of the grate.

"You show every card in your hand, old chap," said he. "What a
prejudiced, green-eyed, evil-thinking old man it is! You have really
nothing against the fellow except that."

"Well, I've known her ever since she was as long as that cherry-wood
pipe, and I don't like to see her taking risks. And it is a risk. He
looks beastly. And he has a beastly temper, a venomous temper. You
remember his row with Long Norton?"

"No; you always forget that I am a freshman."

"Ah, it was last winter. Of course. Well, you know the towpath along
by the river. There were several fellows going along it, Bellingham in
front, when they came on an old market-woman coming the other way. It
had been raining--you know what those fields are like when it has
rained--and the path ran between the river and a great puddle that was
nearly as broad. Well, what does this swine do but keep the path, and
push the old girl into the mud, where she and her marketings came to
terrible grief. It was a blackguard thing to do, and Long Norton, who
is as gentle a fellow as ever stepped, told him what he thought of it.
One word led to another, and it ended in Norton laying his stick
across the fellow's shoulders. There was the deuce of a fuss about it,
and it's a treat to see the way in which Bellingham looks at Norton
when they meet now. By Jove, Smith, it's nearly eleven o'clock!"

"No hurry. Light your pipe again."

"Not I. I'm supposed to be in training. Here I've been sitting
gossiping when I ought to have been safely tucked up. I'll borrow your
skull, if you can share it. Williams has had mine for a month. I'll
take the little bones of your ear, too, if you are sure you won't need
them. Thanks very much. Never mind a bag, I can carry them very well
under my arm. Good night, my son, and take my tip as to your
neighbour."

When Hastie, bearing his anatomical plunder, had clattered off down
the winding stair, Abercrombie Smith hurled his pipe into the
wastepaper basket, and drawing his chair nearer to the lamp, plunged
into a formidable, green-covered volume, adorned with great, coloured
maps of that strange, internal kingdom of which we are the hapless and
helpless monarchs. Though a freshman at Oxford, the student was not so
in medicine, for he had worked for four years at Glasgow and at
Berlin, and this coming examination would place him finally as a
member of his profession. With his firm mouth, broad forehead, and
clear-cut, somewhat hard-featured face, he was a man who, if he had no
brilliant talent, was yet so dogged, so patient, and so strong that he
might in the end overtop a more showy genius. A man who can hold his
own among Scotchmen and North Germans is not a man to be easily set
back. Smith had left a name at Glasgow and at Berlin, and he was bent
now upon doing as much at Oxford, if hard work and devotion could
accomplish it.

He had sat reading for about an hour, and the hands of the noisy
carriage clock upon the side-table were rapidly closing together upon
the twelve, when a sudden sound fell upon the student's ear--a sharp,
rather shrill sound, like the hissing intake of a man's breath who
gasps under some strong emotion. Smith laid down his book and slanted
his ear to listen. There was no one on either side or above him, so
that the interruption came certainly from the neighbour beneath--the
same neighbour of whom Hastie had given so unsavoury an account. Smith
knew him only as a flabby, pale-faced man of silent and studious
habits, a man whose lamp threw a golden bar from the old turret even
after he had extinguished his own. This community in lateness had
formed a certain silent bond between them. It was soothing to Smith
when the hours stole on towards dawning to feel that there was another
so close who set as small a value upon his sleep as he did. Even now,
as his thoughts turned towards him, Smith's feelings were kindly.
Hastie was a good fellow, but he was rough, strong-fibred, with no
imagination or sympathy. He could not tolerate departures from what he
looked upon as the model type of manliness. If a man could not be
measured by a public-school standard, then he was beyond the pale with
Hastie. Like so many who are themselves robust, he was apt to confuse
the constitution with the character, to ascribe to want of principle
what was really a want of circulation. Smith, with his stronger mind,
knew his friend's habit, and made allowance for it now as his thoughts
turned towards the man beneath him.

There was no return of the singular sound, and Smith was about to turn
to his work once more, when suddenly there broke out in the silence of
the night a hoarse cry, a positive scream--the call of a man who is
moved and shaken beyond all control. Smith sprang out of his chair and
dropped his book. He was a man of fairly firm fibre, but there was
something in this sudden, uncontrollable shriek of horror which
chilled his blood and pringled in his skin. Coming in such a place and
at such an hour, it brought a thousand fantastic possibilities into
his head. Should he rush down, or was it better to wait? He had all
the national hatred of making a scene, and he knew so little of his
neighbour that he would not lightly intrude upon his affairs. For a
moment he stood in doubt and even as he balanced the matter there was
a quick rattle of footsteps upon the stairs, and young Monkhouse Lee,
half-dressed and as white as ashes, burst into his room.

"Come down!" he gasped. "Bellingham's ill."

Abercrombie Smith followed him closely downstairs into the
sitting-room which was beneath his own, and intent as he was upon the
matter in hand, he could not but take an amazed glance around him as
he crossed the threshold. It was such a chamber as he had never seen
before--a museum rather than a study. Walls and ceiling were thickly
covered with a thousand strange relics from Egypt and the East. Tall,
angular figures bearing burdens or weapons stalked in an uncouth
frieze round the apartments. Above were bull-headed, stork-headed,
cat-headed, owl-headed statues, with viper-crowned, almond-eyed
monarchs and strange, beetle-like deities cut out of the blue Egyptian
lapis lazuli. Horus and Isis and Osiris peeped down from every niche
and shelf, while across the ceiling a true son of Old Nile, a great,
hanging-jawed crocodile, was slung in a double noose.

In the centre of this singular chamber was a large, square table,
littered with papers, bottles, and the dried leaves of some graceful,
palm-like plant. These varied objects had all been heaped together in
order to make room for a mummy case, which had been conveyed from the
wall, as was evident from the gap there, and laid across the front of
the table. The mummy itself, a horrid, black, withered thing, like a
charred head on a gnarled bush, was lying half out of the case, with
its claw-like hand and bony forearm resting upon the table. Propped up
against the sarcophagus was an old, yellow scroll of papyrus, and in
front of it, in a wooden armchair, sat the owner of the room, his head
thrown back, his widely opened eyes directed in a horrified stare to
the crocodile above him, and his blue, thick lips puffing loudly with
every expiration.

"My God! he's dying!" cried Monkhouse Lee, distractedly.

He was a slim, handsome young fellow, olive-skinned and dark-eyed, of
a Spanish rather than of an English type, with a Celtic intensity of
manner which contrasted with the Saxon phlegm of Abercrombie Smith.

"Only a faint, I think," said the medical student. "Just give me a
hand with him. You take his feet. Now on to the sofa. Can you kick all
those little wooden devils off? What a litter it is! Now he will be
all right if we undo his collar and give him some water. What has he
been up to at all?"

"I don't know. I heard him cry out. I ran up. I know him pretty well,
you know. It is very good of you to come down."

"His heart is going like a pair of castanets," said Smith, laying his
hand on the breast of the unconscious man. "He seems to me to be
frightened all to pieces. Chuck the water over him! What a face he has
got on him!"

It was indeed a strange and most repellent face, for colour and
outline were equally unnatural. It was white, not with the ordinary
pallor of fear, but with an absolutely bloodless white, like the under
side of a sole. He was very fat, but gave the impression of having at
some time been considerably fatter, for his skin hung loosely in
creases and folds, and was shot with a meshwork of wrinkles. Short,
stubbly brown hair bristled up from his scalp, with a pair of thick,
wrinkled ears protruding at the sides. His light-grey eyes were still
open, the pupils dilated and the balls projecting in a fixed and
horrid stare. It seemed to Smith as he looked down upon him that he
had never seen Nature's danger signals flying so plainly upon a man's
countenance, and his thoughts turned more seriously to the warning
which Hastie had given him an hour before.

"What the deuce can have frightened him so?" he asked.

"It's the mummy."

"The mummy? How, then?"

"I don't know. It's beastly and morbid. I wish he would drop it. It's
the second fright he has given me. It was the same last winter. I
found him just like this, with that horrid thing in front of him."

"What does he want with the mummy, then?"

"Oh, he's a crank, you know. It's his hobby. He knows more about these
things than any man in England. But I wish he wouldn't! Ah, he's
beginning to come to."

A faint tinge of colour had begun to steal back into Bellingham's
ghastly cheeks, and his eyelids shivered like a sail after a calm. He
clasped and unclasped his hands, drew a long, thin breath between his
teeth, and suddenly jerking up his head, threw a glance of recognition
around him. As his eyes fell upon the mummy, he sprang off the sofa,
seized the roll of papyrus, thrust it into a drawer, turned the key,
and staggered back on to the sofa.

"What's up?" he asked. "What do you chaps want?"

"You've been shrieking out and making no end of a fuss," said
Monkhouse Lee. "If our neighbour here from above hadn't come down, I'm
sure I don't know what I should have done with you."

"Ah, it's Abercrombie Smith," said Bellingham, glancing up at him.
"How very good of you to come in! What a fool I am! Oh, my God, what a
fool I am!"

He sank his head on to his hands, and burst into peal after peal of
hysterical laughter.

"Look here! Drop it!" cried Smith, shaking him roughly by the
shoulder.

"Your nerves are all in a jangle. You must drop these little midnight
games with mummies, or you'll be going off your chump. You're all on
wires now."

"I wonder," said Bellingham, "whether you would be as cool as I am if
you had seen----"

"What then?"

"Oh, nothing. I meant that I wonder if you could sit up at night with
a mummy without trying your nerves. I have no doubt that you are quite
right. I dare say that I have been taking it out of myself too much
lately. But I am all right now. Please don't go, though. Just wait for
a few minutes until I am quite myself."

"The room is very close," remarked Lee, throwing open the window and
letting in the cool night air.

"It's balsamic resin," said Bellingham. He lifted up one of the dried
palmate leaves from the table and frizzled it over the chimney of the
lamp. It broke away into heavy smoke wreaths, and a pungent, biting
odour filled the chamber. "It's the sacred plant--the plant of the
priests," he remarked. "Do you know anything of Eastern languages,
Smith?"

"Nothing at all. Not a word."

The answer seemed to lift a weight from the Egyptologist's mind.

"By the way," he continued, "how long was it from the time that you
ran down, until I came to my senses?"

"Not long. Some four or five minutes."

"I thought it could not be very long," said he, drawing a long breath.
"But what a strange thing unconsciousness is! There is no measurement
to it. I could not tell from my own sensations if it were seconds or
weeks. Now that gentleman on the table was packed up in the days of
the eleventh dynasty, some forty centuries ago, and yet if he could
find his tongue, he would tell us that this lapse of time has been but
a closing of the eyes and a reopening of them. He is a singularly fine
mummy, Smith."

Smith stepped over to the table and looked down with a professional
eye at the black and twisted form in front of him. The features,
though horribly discoloured, were perfect, and two little nut-like
eyes still lurked in the depths of the black, hollow sockets. The
blotched skin was drawn tightly from bone to bone, and a tangled wrap
of black, coarse hair fell over the ears. Two thin teeth, like those
of a rat, overlay the shrivelled lower lip. In its crouching position,
with bent joints and craned head, there was a suggestion of energy
about the horrid thing which made Smith's gorge rise. The gaunt ribs,
with their parchment-like covering, were exposed, and the sunken,
leaden-hued abdomen, with the long slit where the embalmer had left
his mark; but the lower limbs were wrapped round with coarse, yellow
bandages. A number of little clove-like pieces of myrrh and of cassia
were sprinkled over the body, and lay scattered on the inside of the
case.

"I don't know his name," said Bellingham, passing his hand over the
shrivelled head. "You see the outer sarcophagus with the inscriptions
is missing. Lot 249 is all the title he has now. You see it printed on
his case. That was his number in the auction at which I picked him
up."

"He has been a very pretty sort of fellow in his day," remarked
Abercrombie Smith.

"He has been a giant. His mummy is six feet seven in length, and that
would be a giant over there, for they were never a very robust race.
Feel these great, knotted bones, too. He would be a nasty fellow to
tackle."

"Perhaps these very hands helped to build the stones into the
pyramids," suggested Monkhouse Lee, looking down with disgust in his
eyes at the crooked, unclean talons.

"No fear. This fellow has been pickled in natron, and looked after in
the most approved style. They did not serve hodsmen in that fashion.
Salt or bitumen was enough for them. It has been calculated that this
sort of thing cost about seven hundred and thirty pounds in our money.
Our friend was a noble at the least. What do you make of that small
inscription near his feet, Smith?"

"I told you that I know no Eastern tongue."

"Ah, so you did. It is the name of the embalmer, I take it. A very
conscientious worker he must have been. I wonder how many modern works
will survive four thousand years?"

He kept on speaking lightly and rapidly, but it was evident to
Abercrombie Smith that he was still palpitating with fear. His hands
shook, his lower lip trembled, and look where he would, his eye always
came sliding round to his gruesome companion. Through all his fear,
however, there was a suspicion of triumph in his tone and manner. His
eyes shone, and his footstep, as he paced the room, was brisk and
jaunty. He gave the impression of a man who has gone through an
ordeal, the marks of which he still bears upon him, but which has
helped him to his end.

"You're not going yet?" he cried, as Smith rose from the sofa.

At the prospect of solitude, his fears seemed to crowd back upon him,
and he stretched out a hand to detain him.

"Yes, I must go. I have my work to do. You are all right now. I think
that with your nervous system you should take up some less morbid
study."

"Oh, I am not nervous as a rule; and I have unwrapped mummies before."

"You fainted last time," observed Monkhouse Lee.

"Ah, yes, so I did. Well, I must have a nerve tonic or a course of
electricity. You are not going, Lee?"

"I'll do whatever you wish, Ned."

"Then I'll come down with you and have a shakedown on your sofa. Good
night, Smith. I am so sorry to have disturbed you with my
foolishness."

They shook hands, and as the medical student stumbled up the spiral
and irregular stair he heard a key turn in a door, and the steps of
his two new acquaintances as they descended to the lower floor.



In this strange way began the acquaintance between Edward Bellingham
and Abercrombie Smith, an acquaintance which the latter, at least, had
no desire to push further. Bellingham, however, appeared to have taken
a fancy to his rough-spoken neighbour, and made his advances in such a
way that he could hardly be repulsed without absolute brutality. Twice
he called to thank Smith for his assistance, and many times afterwards
he looked in with books, papers and such other civilities as two
bachelor neighbours can offer each other. He was, as Smith soon found,
a man of wide reading, with catholic tastes and an extraordinary
memory. His manner, too, was so pleasing and suave that one came,
after a time, to overlook his repellent appearance. For a jaded and
wearied man he was no unpleasant companion, and Smith found himself,
after a time, looking forward to his visits, and even returning them.

Clever as he undoubtedly was, however, the medical student seemed to
detect a dash of insanity in the man. He broke out at times into a
high, inflated style of talk which was in contrast with the simplicity
of his life.

"It is a wonderful thing," he cried, "to feel that one can command
powers of good and of evil--a ministering angel or a demon of
vengeance." And again, of Monkhouse Lee, he said,--"Lee is a good
fellow, an honest fellow, but he is without strength or ambition. He
would not make a fit partner for a man with a great enterprise. He
would not make a fit partner for me."

At such hints and innuendoes stolid Smith, puffing solemnly at his
pipe, would simply raise his eyebrows and shake his head, with little
interjections of medical wisdom as to earlier hours and fresher air.

One habit Bellingham had developed of late which Smith knew to be a
frequent herald of a weakening mind. He appeared to be for ever
talking to himself. At late hours of the night, when there could be no
visitor with him, Smith could still hear his voice beneath him in a
low, muffled monologue, sunk almost to a whisper, and yet very audible
in the silence. This solitary babbling annoyed and distracted the
student, so that he spoke more than once to his neighbour about it.
Bellingham, however, flushed up at the charge, and denied curtly that
he had uttered a sound; indeed, he showed more annoyance over the
matter than the occasion seemed to demand.

Had Abercrombie Smith had any doubt as to his own ears he had not to
go far to find corroboration. Tom Styles, the little wrinkled
man-servant who had attended to the wants of the lodgers in the turret
for a longer time than any man's memory could carry him, was sorely
put to it over the same matter.

"If you please, sir," said he, as he tidied down the top chamber one
morning, "do you think Mr. Bellingham is all right, sir?"

"All right, Styles?"

"Yes, sir. Right in the head, sir."

"Why should he not be, then?"

"Well, I don't know, sir. His habits has changed of late. He's not the
same man he used to be, though I make free to say that he was never
quite one of my gentlemen, like Mr. Hastie or yourself, sir. He's took
to talkin' to himself something awful. I wonder it don't disturb you.
I don't know what to make of him, sir."

"I don't know what business it is of yours, Styles."

"Well, I takes an interest, Mr. Smith. It may be forward of me, but I
can't help it. I feel sometimes as if I was mother and father to my
young gentlemen. It all falls on me when things go wrong and the
relations come. But Mr. Bellingham, sir. I want to know what it is
that walks about his room sometimes when he's out and when the door's
locked on the outside."

"Eh? you're talking nonsense, Styles."

"Maybe so, sir; but I heard it more'n once with my own ears."

"Rubbish, Styles."

"Very good, sir. You'll ring the bell if you want me."

Abercrombie Smith gave little heed to the gossip of the old
man-servant, but a small incident occurred a few days later which left
an unpleasant effect upon his mind, and brought the words of Styles
forcibly to his memory.

Bellingham had come up to see him late one night, and was entertaining
him with an interesting account of the rock tombs of Beni Hassan in
Upper Egypt, when Smith, whose hearing was remarkably acute,
distinctly heard the sound of a door opening on the landing below.

"There's some fellow gone in or out of your room," he remarked.

Bellingham sprang up and stood helpless for a moment, with the
expression of a man who is half-incredulous and half-afraid.

"I surely locked it. I am almost positive that I locked it," he
stammered. "No one could have opened it."

"Why, I hear someone coming up the steps now," said Smith.

Bellingham rushed out through the door, slammed it loudly behind him,
and hurried down the stairs. About half-way down Smith heard him stop,
and thought he caught the sound of whispering. A moment later the door
beneath him shut, a key creaked in a lock, and Bellingham, with beads
of moisture upon his pale face, ascended the stairs once more, and
re-entered the room.

"It's all right," he said, throwing himself down in a chair. "It was
that fool of a dog. He had pushed the door open. I don't know how I
came to forget to lock it."

"I didn't know you kept a dog," said Smith, looking very thoughtfully
at the disturbed face of his companion.

"Yes, I haven't had him long. I must get rid of him. He's a great
nuisance."

"He must be, if you find it so hard to shut him up. I should have
thought that shutting the door would have been enough, without locking
it."

"I want to prevent old Styles from letting him out. He's of some
value, you know, and it would be awkward to lose him."

"I am a bit of a dog-fancier myself," said Smith, still gazing hard at
his companion from the corner of his eyes. "Perhaps you'll let me have
a look at it."

"Certainly. But I am afraid it cannot be to-night; I have an
appointment. Is that clock right? Then I am a quarter of an hour late
already. You'll excuse me, I am sure."

He picked up his cap and hurried from the room. In spite of his
appointment, Smith heard him re-enter his own chamber and lock his
door upon the inside.

This interview left a disagreeable impression upon the medical
student's mind. Bellingham had lied to him, and lied so clumsily that
it looked as if he had desperate reasons for concealing the truth.
Smith knew that his neighbour had no dog. He knew, also, that the step
which he had heard upon the stairs was not the step of an animal. But
if it were not, then what could it be? There was old Style's statement
about the something which used to pace the room at times when the
owner was absent. Could it be a woman? Smith rather inclined to the
view. If so, it would mean disgrace and expulsion to Bellingham if it
were discovered by the authorities, so that his anxiety and falsehoods
might be accounted for. And yet it was inconceivable that an
undergraduate could keep a woman in his rooms without being instantly
detected. Be the explanation what it might, there was something ugly
about it, and Smith determined, as he turned to his books, to
discourage all further attempts at intimacy on the part of his
soft-spoken and ill-favoured neighbour.

But his work was destined to interruption that night. He had hardly
caught up the broken threads when a firm, heavy footfall came three
steps at a time from below, and Hastie, in blazer and flannels, burst
into the room.

"Still at it!" said he, plumping down into his wonted arm-chair. "What
a chap you are to stew! I believe an earthquake might come and knock
Oxford into a cocked hat, and you would sit perfectly placid with your
books among the ruins. However, I won't bore you long. Three whiffs of
baccy, and I am off."

"What's the news, then?" asked Smith, cramming a plug of bird's-eye
into his briar with his forefinger.

"Nothing very much. Wilson made 70 for the freshmen against the
eleven. They say that they will play him instead of Buddicomb, for
Buddicomb is clean off colour. He used to be able to bowl a little,
but it's nothing but half-volleys and long hops now."

"Medium right," suggested Smith, with the intense gravity which comes
upon a 'varsity man when he speaks of athletics.

"Inclining to fast, with a work from leg. Comes with the arm about
three inches or so. He used to be nasty on a wet wicket. Oh, by the
way, have you heard about Long Norton?"

"What's that?"

"He's been attacked."

"Attacked?"

"Yes, just as he was turning out of the High Street, and within a
hundred yards of the gate of Old's."

"But who----"

"Ah, that's the rub! If you said 'what,' you would be more
grammatical. Norton swears that it was not human, and, indeed, from
the scratches on his throat, I should be inclined to agree with him."

"What, then? Have we come down to spooks?"

Abercrombie Smith puffed his scientific contempt.

"Well, no; I don't think that is quite the idea, either. I am inclined
to think that if any showman has lost a great ape lately, and the
brute is in these parts, a jury would find a true bill against it.
Norton passes that way every night, you know, about the same hour.
There's a tree that hangs low over the path--the big elm from Rainy's
garden. Norton thinks the thing dropped on him out of the tree.
Anyhow, he was nearly strangled by two arms, which, he says, were as
strong and as thin as steel bands. He saw nothing; only those beastly
arms that tightened and tightened on him. He yelled his head nearly
off, and a couple of chaps came running, and the thing went over the
wall like a cat. He never got a fair sight of it the whole time. It
gave Norton a shake up, I can tell you. I tell him it has been as good
as a change at the seaside for him."

"A garrotter, most likely," said Smith.

"Very possibly. Norton says not; but we don't mind what he says. The
garrotter had long nails, and was pretty smart at swinging himself
over walls. By the way, your beautiful neighbour would be pleased if
he heard about it. He had a grudge against Norton, and he's not a man,
from what I know of him, to forget his little debts. But hallo, old
chap, what have you got in your noddle?"

"Nothing," Smith answered, curtly.

He had started in his chair, and the look had flashed over his face
which comes upon a man who is struck suddenly by some unpleasant idea.

"You looked as if something I had said had taken you on the raw. By
the way, you have made the acquaintance of Master B. since I looked in
last, have you not? Young Monkhouse Lee told me something to that
effect."

"Yes; I know him slightly. He has been up here once or twice."

"Well, you're big enough and ugly enough to take care of yourself.
He's not what I should call exactly a healthy sort of Johnny, though,
no doubt, he's very clever, and all that. But you'll soon find out for
yourself. Lee is all right; he's a very decent little fellow. Well, so
long, old chap! I row Mullins for the Vice-Chancellor's pot on
Wednesday week, so mind you come down, in case I don't see you
before."

Bovine Smith laid down his pipe and turned stolidly to his books once
more. But with all the will in the world, he found it very hard to
keep his mind upon his work. It would slip away to brood upon the man
beneath him, and upon the little mystery which hung round his
chambers. Then his thoughts turned to this singular attack of which
Hastie had spoken, and to the grudge which Bellingham was said to owe
to the object of it. The two ideas would persist in rising together in
his mind, as though there were some close and intimate connection
between them. And yet the suspicion was so dim and vague that it could
not be put down in words.

"Confound the chap!" cried Smith, as he shied his book on pathology
across the room. "He has spoiled my night's reading, and that's reason
enough, if there were no other, why I should steer clear of him in the
future."

For ten days the medical student confined himself so closely to his
studies that he neither saw nor heard anything of either of the men
beneath him. At the hours when Bellingham had been accustomed to visit
him, he took care to sport his oak, and though he more than once heard
a knocking at his outer door, he resolutely refused to answer it. One
afternoon, however, he was descending the stairs when, just as he was
passing it, Bellingham's door flew open, and young Monkhouse Lee came
out with his eyes sparkling and a dark flush of anger upon his olive
cheeks. Close at his heels followed Bellingham, his fat, unhealthy
face all quivering with malignant passion.

"You fool!" he hissed. "You'll be sorry."

"Very likely," cried the other. "Mind what I say. It's off! I won't
hear of it!"

"You've promised, anyhow."

"Oh, I'll keep that! I won't speak. But I'd rather little Eva was in
her grave. Once for all, it's off. She'll do what I say. We don't want
to see you again."

So much Smith could not avoid hearing, but he hurried on, for he had
no wish to be involved in their dispute. There had been a serious
breach between them, that was clear enough, and Lee was going to cause
the engagement with his sister to be broken off. Smith thought of
Hastie's comparison of the toad and the dove, and was glad to think
that the matter was at an end. Bellingham's face when he was in a
passion was not pleasant to look upon. He was not a man to whom an
innocent girl could be trusted for life. As he walked, Smith wondered
languidly what could have caused the quarrel, and what the promise
might be which Bellingham had been so anxious that Monkhouse Lee
should keep.

It was the day of the sculling match between Hastie and Mullins, and a
stream of men were making their way down to the banks of the Isis. A
May sun was shining brightly, and the yellow path was barred with the
black shadows of tall elm-trees. On either side the grey colleges lay
back from the road, the hoary old mothers of minds looking out from
their high, mullioned windows at the tide of young life which swept so
merrily past them. Black-clad tutors, prim officials, pale, reading
men, brown-faced, straw-hatted young athletes in white sweaters or
many-coloured blazers, all were hurrying towards the blue, winding
river which curves through the Oxford meadows.

Abercrombie Smith, with the intuition of an old oarsman, chose his
position at the point where he knew that the struggle, if there were a
struggle, would come. Far off he heard the hum which announced the
start, the gathering roar of the approach, the thunder of running
feet, and the shouts of the men in the boats beneath him. A spray of
half-clad, deep-breathing runners shot past him, and craning over
their shoulders, he saw Hastie pulling a steady thirty-six, while his
opponent, with a jerky forty, was a good boat's length behind him.
Smith gave a cheer for his friend, and pulling out his watch, was
starting off again for his chambers, when he felt a touch upon his
shoulder, and found that young Monkhouse Lee was beside him.

"I saw you there," he said, in a timid, deprecating way. "I wanted to
speak to you, if you could spare me a half-hour. This cottage is mine.
I share it with Harrington of King's. Come in and have a cup of tea."

"I must be back presently," said Smith. "I am hard on the grind at
present. But I'll come in for a few minutes with pleasure. I wouldn't
have come out only Hastie is a friend of mine."

"So he is of mine. Hasn't he a beautiful style? Mullins wasn't in it.
But come into the cottage. It's a little den of a place, but it is
pleasant to work in during the summer months."

It was a small, square, white building, with green doors and shutters,
and a rustic trellis-work porch, standing back some fifty yards from
the river's bank. Inside, the main room was roughly fitted up as a
study--deal table, unpainted shelves with books, and a few cheap
oleographs upon the wall. A kettle sang upon a spirit-stove, and there
were tea things upon a tray on the table.

"Try that chair and have a cigarette," said Lee. "Let me pour you out
a cup of tea. It's so good of you to come in, for I know that your
time is a good deal taken up. I wanted to say to you that, if I were
you, I should change my rooms at once."

"Eh?"

Smith sat staring at a lighted match in one hand and his unlit
cigarette in the other.

"Yes; it must seem very extraordinary, and the worst of it is that I
cannot give my reasons, for I am under a solemn promise--a very solemn
promise. But I may go so far as to say that I don't think Bellingham
is a very safe man to live near. I intend to camp out here as much as
I can for a time."

"Not safe! What do you mean?"

"Ah, that's what I mustn't say. But do take my advice and move your
rooms. We had a grand row to-day. You must have heard us, for you came
down the stairs."

"I saw that you had fallen out."

"He's a horrible chap, Smith. That is the only word for him. I have
had doubts about him ever since that night when he fainted--you
remember, when you came down. I taxed him to-day, and he told me
things that made my hair rise, and wanted me to stand in with him. I'm
not straight-laced, but I am a clergyman's son, you know, and I think
there are some things which are quite beyond the pale. I only thank
God that I found him out before it was too late, for he was to have
married into my family."

"This is all very fine, Lee," said Abercrombie Smith curtly. "But
either you are saying a great deal too much or a great deal too
little."

"I give you a warning."

"If there is real reason for warning, no promise can bind you. If I
see a rascal about to blow a place up with dynamite no pledge will
stand in my way of preventing him."

"Ah, but I cannot prevent him, and I can do nothing but warn you."

"Without saying what you warn me against."

"Against Bellingham."

"But that is childish. Why should I fear him, or any man?"

"I can't tell you. I can only entreat you to change your rooms. You
are in danger where you are. I don't even say that Bellingham would
wish to injure you. But it might happen, for he is a dangerous
neighbour just now."

"Perhaps I know more than you think," said Smith, looking keenly at
the young man's boyish, earnest face. "Suppose I tell you that someone
else shares Bellingham's rooms."

Monkhouse Lee sprang from his chair in uncontrollable excitement.

"You know, then?" he gasped.

"A woman."

Lee dropped back again with a groan.

"My lips are sealed," he said. "I must not speak."

"Well, anyhow," said Smith, rising, "it is not likely that I should
allow myself to be frightened out of rooms which suit me very nicely.
It would be a little too feeble for me to move out all my goods and
chattels because you say that Bellingham might in some unexplained way
do me an injury. I think that I'll just take my chance, and stay where
I am, and as I see that it's nearly five o'clock, I must ask you to
excuse me."

He bade the young student adieu in a few curt words, and made his way
homeward through the sweet spring evening, feeling half-ruffled,
half-amused, as any other strong, unimaginative man might who has been
menaced by a vague and shadowy danger.

There was one little indulgence which Abercrombie Smith always allowed
himself, however closely his work might press upon him. Twice a week,
on the Tuesday and the Friday, it was his invariable custom to walk
over to Farlingford, the residence of Doctor Plumptree Peterson,
situated about a mile and a half out of Oxford. Peterson had been a
close friend of Smith's elder brother, Francis, and as he was a
bachelor, fairly well-to-do, with a good cellar and a better library,
his house was a pleasant goal for a man who was in need of a brisk
walk. Twice a week, then, the medical student would swing out there
along the dark country roads and spend a pleasant hour in Peterson's
comfortable study, discussing, over a glass of old port, the gossip of
the 'varsity or the latest developments of medicine or of surgery.

On the day which followed his interview with Monkhouse Lee, Smith shut
up his books at a quarter past eight, the hour when he usually started
for his friend's house. As he was leaving his room, however, his eyes
chanced to fall upon one of the books which Bellingham had lent him,
and his conscience pricked him for not having returned it. However
repellent the man might be, he should not be treated with discourtesy.
Taking the book, he walked downstairs and knocked at his neighbour's
door. There was no answer; but on turning the handle he found that it
was unlocked. Pleased at the thought of avoiding an interview, he
stepped inside, and placed the book with his card upon the table.

The lamp was turned half down, but Smith could see the details of the
room plainly enough. It was all much as he had seen it before--the
frieze, the animal-headed gods, the hanging crocodile, and the table
littered over with papers and dried leaves. The mummy case stood
upright against the wall, but the mummy itself was missing. There was
no sign of any second occupant of the room, and he felt as he withdrew
that he had probably done Bellingham an injustice. Had he a guilty
secret to preserve, he would hardly leave his door open so that all
the world might enter.

The spiral stair was as black as pitch, and Smith was slowly making
his way down its irregular steps, when he was suddenly conscious that
something had passed him in the darkness. There was a faint sound, a
whiff of air, a light brushing past his elbow, but so slight that he
could scarcely be certain of it. He stopped and listened, but the wind
was rustling among the ivy outside, and he could hear nothing else.

"Is that you, Styles?" he shouted.

There was no answer, and all was still behind him. It must have been a
sudden gust of air, for there were crannies and cracks in the old
turret. And yet he could almost have sworn that he heard a footfall by
his very side. He had emerged into the quadrangle, still turning the
matter over in his head, when a man came running swiftly across the
smooth-cropped lawn.

"Is that you, Smith?"

"Hullo, Hastie!"

"For God's sake come at once! Young Lee is drowned! Here's Harrington
of King's with the news. The doctor is out. You'll do, but come along
at once. There may be life in him."

"Have you brandy?"

"No."

"I'll bring some. There's a flask on my table."

Smith bounded up the stairs, taking three at a time, seized the flask,
and was rushing down with it, when, as he passed Bellingham's room,
his eyes fell upon something which left him gasping and staring upon
the landing.

The door, which he had closed behind him, was now open, and right in
front of him, with the lamp-light shining upon it, was the mummy case.
Three minutes ago it had been empty. He could swear to that. Now it
framed the lank body of its horrible occupant, who stood, grim and
stark, with his black, shrivelled face towards the door. The form was
lifeless and inert, but it seemed to Smith as he gazed that there
still lingered a lurid spark of vitality, some faint sign of
consciousness in the little eyes which lurked in the depths of the
hollow sockets. So astounded and shaken was he that he had forgotten
his errand, and was still staring at the lean, sunken figure when the
voice of his friend below recalled him to himself.

"Come on, Smith!" he shouted. "It's life and death, you know. Hurry
up! Now, then," he added, as the medical student reappeared, "let us
do a sprint. It is well under a mile, and we should do it in five
minutes. A human life is better worth running for than a pot."

Neck and neck they dashed through the darkness, and did not pull up
until panting and spent, they had reached the little cottage by the
river. Young Lee, limp and dripping like a broken water-plant, was
stretched upon the sofa, the green scum of the river upon his black
hair, and a fringe of white foam upon his leaden-hued lips. Beside him
knelt his fellow-student, Harrington, endeavouring to chafe some
warmth back into his rigid limbs.

"I think there's life in him," said Smith, with his hand to the lad's
side. "Put your watch glass to his lips. Yes, there's dimming on it.
You take one arm, Hastie. Now work it as I do, and we'll soon pull him
round."

For ten minutes they worked in silence, inflating and depressing the
chest of the unconscious man. At the end of that time a shiver ran
through his body, his lips trembled, and he opened his eyes. The three
students burst out into an irrepressible cheer.

"Wake up, old chap. You've frightened us quite enough."

"Have some brandy. Take a sip from the flask."

"He's all right now," said his companion Harrington. "Heavens, what a
fright I got! I was reading here, and he had gone out for a stroll as
far as the river, when I heard a scream and a splash. Out I ran, and
by the time I could find him and fish him out, all life seemed to have
gone. Then Simpson couldn't get a doctor, for he has a game-leg, and I
had to run, and I don't know what I'd have done without you fellows.
That's right, old chap. Sit up."

Monkhouse Lee had raised himself on his hands, and looked wildly about
him.

"What's up?" he asked. "I've been in the water. Ah, yes; I remember."

A look of fear came into his eyes, and he sank his face into his
hands.

"How did you fall in?"

"I didn't fall in."

"How then?"

"I was thrown in. I was standing by the bank, and something from
behind picked me up like a feather and hurled me in. I heard nothing,
and I saw nothing. But I know what it was, for all that."

"And so do I," whispered Smith.

Lee looked up with a quick glance of surprise.

"You've learned, then?" he said. "You remember the advice I gave you?"

"Yes, and I begin to think that I shall take it."

"I don't know what the deuce you fellows are talking about," said
Hastie, "but I think, if I were you, Harrington, I should get Lee to
bed at once. It will be time enough to discuss the why and the
wherefore when he is a little stronger. I think, Smith, you and I can
leave him alone now. I am walking back to college; if you are coming
in that direction, we can have a chat."

But it was little chat that they had upon their homeward path. Smith's
mind was too full of the incidents of the evening, the absence of the
mummy from his neighbour's rooms, the step that passed him on the
stair, the reappearance--the extraordinary, inexplicable reappearance
of the grisly thing--and then this attack upon Lee, corresponding so
closely to the previous outrage upon another man against whom
Bellingham bore a grudge. All this settled in his thoughts, together
with the many little incidents which had previously turned him against
his neighbour, and the singular circumstances under which he was first
called in to him. What had been a dim suspicion, a vague, fantastic
conjecture, had suddenly taken form, and stood out in his mind as a
grim fact, a thing not to be denied. And yet, how monstrous it was!
how unheard of! how entirely beyond all bounds of human experience. An
impartial judge, or even the friend who walked by his side, would
simply tell him that his eyes had deceived him, that the mummy had
been there all the time, that young Lee had tumbled into the river as
any other man tumbles into a river, and the blue pill was the best
thing for a disordered liver. He felt that he would have said as much
if the positions had been reversed. And yet he could swear that
Bellingham was a murderer at heart, and that he wielded a weapon such
as no man had ever used in all the grim history of crime.

Hastie had branched off to his rooms with a few crisp and emphatic
comments upon his friend's unsociability, and Abercrombie Smith
crossed the quadrangle to his corner turret with a strong feeling of
repulsion for his chambers and their associations. He would take Lee's
advice, and move his quarters as soon as possible, for how could a man
study when his ear was ever straining for every murmur or footstep in
the room below? He observed, as he crossed over the lawn, that the
light was still shining in Bellingham's window, and as he passed up
the staircase the door opened, and the man himself looked out at him.
With his fat, evil face he was like some bloated spider fresh from the
weaving of his poisonous web.

"Good evening," said he. "Won't you come in?"

"No," cried Smith fiercely.

"No? You are as busy as ever? I wanted to ask you about Lee. I was
sorry to hear that there was a rumour that something was amiss with
him."

His features were grave, but there was the gleam of a hidden laugh in
his eyes as he spoke. Smith saw it, and he could have knocked him down
for it.

"You'll be sorrier still to hear that Monkhouse Lee is doing very
well, and is out of all danger," he answered. "Your hellish tricks
have not come off this time. Oh, you needn't try to brazen it out. I
know all about it."

Bellingham took a step back from the angry student, and half-closed
the door as if to protect himself.

"You are mad," he said. "What do you mean? Do you assert that I had
anything to do with Lee's accident?"

"Yes," thundered Smith. "You and that bag of bones behind you; you
worked it between you. I tell you what it is, Master B., they have
given up burning folk like you, but we still keep a hangman, and, by
George! if any man in this college meets his death while you are here,
I'll have you up, and if you don't swing for it, it won't be my fault.
You'll find that your filthy Egyptian tricks won't answer in England."

"You're a raving lunatic," said Bellingham.

"All right. You just remember what I say, for you'll find that I'll be
better than my word."

The door slammed, and Smith went fuming up to his chamber, where he
locked the door upon the inside, and spent half the night in smoking
his old briar and brooding over the strange events of the evening.

Next morning Abercrombie Smith heard nothing of his neighbour, but
Harrington called upon him in the afternoon to say that Lee was almost
himself again. All day Smith stuck fast to his work, but in the
evening he determined to pay the visit to his friend Doctor Peterson
upon which he had started the night before. A good walk and a friendly
chat would be welcome to his jangled nerves.

Bellingham's door was shut as he passed, but glancing back when he was
some distance from the turret, he saw his neighbour's head at the
window outlined against the lamp-light, his face pressed apparently
against the glass as he gazed out into the darkness. It was a blessing
to be away from all contact with him, if but for a few hours, and
Smith stepped out briskly, and breathed the soft spring air into his
lungs. The half-moon lay in the west between two Gothic pinnacles, and
threw upon the silvered street a dark tracery from the stonework
above. There was a brisk breeze, and light, fleecy clouds drifted
swiftly across the sky. Old's was on the very border of the town, and
in five minutes Smith found himself beyond the houses and between the
hedges of a May-scented, Oxfordshire lane.

It was a lonely and little-frequented road which led to his friend's
house. Early as it was, Smith did not meet a single soul upon his way.
He walked briskly along until he came to the avenue gate, which opened
into the long, gravel drive leading up to Farlingford. In front of him
he could see the cosy, red light of the windows glimmering through the
foliage. He stood with his hand upon the iron latch of the swinging
gate, and he glanced back at the road along which he had come.
Something was coming swiftly down it.

It moved in the shadow of the hedge, silently and furtively, a dark,
crouching figure, dimly visible against the black background. Even as
he gazed back at it, it had lessened its distance by twenty paces, and
was fast closing upon him. Out of the darkness he had a glimpse of a
scraggy neck, and of two eyes that will ever haunt him in his dreams.
He turned, and with a cry of terror he ran for his life up the avenue.
There were the red lights, the signals of safety, almost within a
stone's-throw of him. He was a famous runner, but never had he run as
he ran that night.

The heavy gate had swung into place behind him but he heard it dash
open again before his pursuer. As he rushed madly and wildly through
the night, he could hear a swift, dry patter behind him, and could
see, as he threw back a glance, that this horror was bounding like a
tiger at his heels, with blazing eyes and one stringy arm out-thrown.
Thank God, the door was ajar. He could see the thin bar of light which
shot from the lamp in the hall. Nearer yet sounded the clatter from
behind. He heard a hoarse gurgling at his very shoulder. With a shriek
he flung himself against the door, slammed and bolted it behind him,
and sank half-fainting on to the hall chair.

"My goodness, Smith, what's the matter?" asked Peterson, appearing at
the door of his study.

"Give me some brandy."

Peterson disappeared, and came rushing out again with a glass and a
decanter.

"You need it," he said, as his visitor drank off what he poured out
for him. "Why, man, you are as white as a cheese."

Smith laid down his glass, rose up, and took a deep breath.

"I am my own man again now," said he. "I was never so unmanned before.
But, with your leave, Peterson, I will sleep here to-night, for I
don't think I could face that road again except by daylight. It's
weak, I know, but I can't help it."

Peterson looked at his visitor with a very questioning eye.

"Of course you shall sleep here if you wish. I'll tell Mrs. Burney to
make up the spare bed. Where are you off to now?"

"Come up with me to the window that overlooks the door. I want you to
see what I have seen."

They went up to the window of the upper hall whence they could look
down upon the approach to the house. The drive and the fields on
either side lay quiet and still, bathed in the peaceful moonlight.

"Well, really, Smith," remarked Peterson, "it is well that I know you
to be an abstemious man. What in the world can have frightened you?"

"I'll tell you presently. But where can it have gone? Ah, now, look,
look! See the curve of the road just beyond your gate."

"Yes, I see; you needn't pinch my arm off. I saw someone pass. I
should say a man, rather thin, apparently, and tall, very tall. But
what of him? And what of yourself? You are still shaking like an aspen
leaf."

"I have been within hand-grip of the devil, that's all. But come down
to your study, and I shall tell you the whole story."

He did so. Under the cheery lamp-light with a glass of wine on the
table beside him, and the portly form and florid face of his friend in
front, he narrated, in their order, all the events, great and small,
which had formed so singular a chain, from the night on which he had
found Bellingham fainting in front of the mummy case until this horrid
experience of an hour ago.

"There now," he said as he concluded, "that's the whole, black
business. It is monstrous and incredible, but it is true."

Doctor Plumptree Peterson sat for some time in silence with a very
puzzled expression upon his face.

"I never heard of such a thing in my life, never!" he said at last.
"You have told me the facts. Now tell me your inferences."

"You can draw your own."

"But I should like to hear yours. You have thought over the matter,
and I have not."

"Well, it must be a little vague in detail, but the main points seem
to me to be clear enough. This fellow Bellingham, in his Eastern
studies, has got hold of some infernal secret by which a mummy--or
possibly only this particular mummy--can be temporarily brought to
life. He was trying this disgusting business on the night when he
fainted. No doubt the sight of the creature moving had shaken his
nerve, even though he had expected it. You remember that almost the
first words he said were to call out upon himself as a fool. Well, he
got more hardened afterwards, and carried the matter through without
fainting. The vitality which he could put into it was evidently only a
passing thing, for I have seen it continually in its case as dead as
this table. He has some elaborate process, I fancy, by which he brings
the thing to pass. Having done it, he naturally bethought him that he
might use the creature as an agent. It has intelligence and it has
strength. For some purpose he took Lee into his confidence; but Lee,
like a decent Christian, would have nothing to do with such a
business. Then they had a row, and Lee vowed that he would tell his
sister of Bellingham's true character. Bellingham's game was to
prevent him, and he nearly managed it, by setting this creature of his
on his track. He had already tried its powers upon another
man--Norton--towards whom he had a grudge. It is the merest chance
that he has not two murders upon his soul. Then, when I taxed him with
the matter, he had the strongest reasons for wishing to get me out of
the way before I could convey my knowledge to anyone else. He got his
chance when I went out, for he knew my habits and where I was bound
for. I have had a narrow shave, Peterson, and it is mere luck that you
didn't find me on your doorstep in the morning. I'm not a nervous man
as a rule, and I never thought to have the fear of death put upon me
as it was to-night."

"My dear boy, you take the matter too seriously," said his companion.
"Your nerves are out of order with your work, and you make too much of
it. How could such a thing as this stride about the streets of Oxford,
even at night, without being seen?"

"It has been seen. There is quite a scare in the town about an escaped
ape, as they imagine the creature to be. It is the talk of the place."

"Well, it's a striking chain of events. And yet, my dear fellow, you
must allow that each incident in itself is capable of a more natural
explanation?"

"What! even my adventure of to-night?"

"Certainly. You come out with your nerves all unstrung, and your head
full of this theory of yours. Some gaunt, half-famished tramp steals
after you, and seeing you run, is emboldened to pursue you. Your fears
and imagination do the rest."

"It won't do, Peterson; it won't do."

"And again, in the instance of your finding the mummy case empty, and
then a few moments later with an occupant, you know that it was
lamp-light, that the lamp was half turned down, and that you had no
special reason to look hard at the case. It is quite possible that you
may have overlooked the creature in the first instance."

"No, no; it is out of the question."

"And then Lee may have fallen into the river, and Norton been
garrotted. It is certainly a formidable indictment that you have
against Bellingham; but if you were to place it before a police
magistrate, he would simply laugh in your face."

"I know he would. That is why I mean to take the matter into my own
hands."

"Eh?"

"Yes; I feel that a public duty rests upon me, and besides, I must do
it for my own safety, unless I choose to allow myself to be hunted by
this beast out of the college, and that would be a little too feeble.
I have quite made up my mind what I shall do. And first of all, may I
use your paper and pens for an hour?"

"Most certainly. You will find all that you want upon that
side-table."

Abercrombie Smith sat down before a sheet of foolscap, and for an
hour, and then for a second hour his pen travelled swiftly over it.
Page after page was finished and tossed aside while his friend leaned
back in his armchair, looking across at him with patient curiosity. At
last, with an exclamation of satisfaction, Smith sprang to his feet,
gathered his papers up into order, and laid the last one upon
Peterson's desk.

"Kindly sign this as a witness," he said.

"A witness? Of what?"

"Of my signature, and of the date. The date is the most important.
Why, Peterson, my life might hang upon it."

"My dear Smith, you are talking wildly. Let me beg you to go to bed."

"On the contrary, I never spoke so deliberately in my life. And I will
promise to go to bed the moment you have signed it."

"But what is it?"

"It is a statement of all that I have been telling you to-night. I
wish you to witness it."

"Certainly," said Peterson, signing his name under that of his
companion. "There you are! But what is the idea?"

"You will kindly retain it, and produce it in case I am arrested."

"Arrested? For what?"

"For murder. It is quite on the cards. I wish to be ready for every
event. There is only one course open to me, and I am determined to
take it."

"For Heaven's sake, don't do anything rash!"

"Believe me, it would be far more rash to adopt any other course. I
hope that we won't need to bother you, but it will ease my mind to
know that you have this statement of my motives. And now I am ready to
take your advice and to go to roost, for I want to be at my best in
the morning."



Abercrombie Smith was not an entirely pleasant man to have as an
enemy. Slow and easy-tempered, he was formidable when driven to
action. He brought to every purpose in life the same deliberate
resoluteness which had distinguished him as a scientific student. He
had laid his studies aside for a day, but he intended that the day
should not be wasted. Not a word did he say to his host as to his
plans, but by nine o'clock he was well on his way to Oxford.

In the High Street he stopped at Clifford's, the gun-maker's, and
bought a heavy revolver, with a box of central-fire cartridges. Six of
them he slipped into the chambers, and half-cocking the weapon, placed
it in the pocket of his coat. He then made his way to Hastie's rooms,
where the big oarsman was lounging over his breakfast, with the
/Sporting Times/ propped up against the coffee-pot.

"Hullo! What's up?" he asked. "Have some coffee?"

"No, thank you. I want you to come with me, Hastie, and do what I ask
you."

"Certainly, my boy."

"And bring a heavy stick with you."

"Hullo!" Hastie stared. "Here's a hunting crop that would fell an ox."

"One other thing. You have a box of amputating knives. Give me the
longest of them."

"There you are. You seem to be fairly on the war trail. Anything
else?"

"No; that will do." Smith placed the knife inside his coat, and led
the way to the quadrangle. "We are neither of us chickens, Hastie,"
said he. "I think I can do this job alone, but I take you as a
precaution. I am going to have a little talk with Bellingham. If I
have only him to deal with, I won't, of course, need you. If I shout,
however, up you come, and lam out with your whip as hard as you can
lick. Do you understand?"

"All right. I'll come if I hear you bellow."

"Stay here, then. I may be a little time, but don't budge until I come
down."

"I'm a fixture."

Smith ascended the stairs, opened Bellingham's door and stepped in.
Bellingham was seated behind his table, writing. Beside him, among his
litter of strange possessions, towered the mummy case, with its sale
number 249 still stuck upon its front, and its hideous occupant stiff
and stark within it. Smith looked very deliberately round him, closed
the door, and then, stepping across to the fireplace, struck a match
and set the fire alight. Bellingham sat staring, with amazement and
rage upon his bloated face.

"Well, really now, you make yourself at home," he gasped.

Smith sat himself deliberately down, placing his watch upon the table,
drew out his pistol, cocked it, and laid it in his lap. Then he took
the long amputating knife from his bosom, and threw it down in front
of Bellingham.

"Now, then," said he, "just get to work and cut up that mummy."

"Oh, is that it?" said Bellingham with a sneer.

"Yes, that is it. They tell me that the law can't touch you. But I
have a law that will set matters straight. If in five minutes you have
not set to work, I swear by the God who made me that I will put a
bullet through your brain!"

"You would murder me?"

Bellingham had half-risen, and his face was the colour of putty.

"Yes."

"And for what?"

"To stop your mischief. One minute has gone."

"But what have I done?"

"I know and you know."

"This is mere bullying."

"Two minutes are gone."

"But you must give reasons. You are a madman--a dangerous madman. Why
should I destroy my own property? It is a valuable mummy."

"You must cut it up, and you must burn it."

"I will do no such thing."

"Four minutes are gone."

Smith took up the pistol and he looked towards Bellingham with an
inexorable face. As the second-hand stole round, he raised his hand,
and the finger twitched upon the trigger.

"There! there! I'll do it!" screamed Bellingham.

In frantic haste he caught up the knife and hacked at the figure of
the mummy, ever glancing round to see the eye and the weapon of his
terrible visitor bent upon him. The creature crackled and snapped
under every stab of the keen blade. A thick, yellow dust rose up from
it. Spices and dried essences rained down upon the floor. Suddenly,
with a rending crack, its backbone snapped asunder, and it fell, a
brown heap of sprawling limbs, upon the floor.

"Now into the fire!" said Smith.

The flames leaped and roared as the dried and tinder-like debris was
piled upon it. The little room was like the stoke-hole of a steamer
and the sweat ran down the faces of the two men; but still the one
stooped and worked, while the other sat watching him with a set face.
A thick, fat smoke oozed out from the fire, and a heavy smell of
burned resin and singed hair filled the air. In a quarter of an hour a
few charred and brittle sticks were all that was left of Lot No. 249.

"Perhaps that will satisfy you," snarled Bellingham, with hate and
fear in his little grey eyes as he glanced back at his tormentor.

"No; I must make a clean sweep of all your materials. We must have no
more devil's tricks. In with all these leaves! They may have something
to do with it."

"And what now?" asked Bellingham, when the leaves also had been added
to the blaze.

"Now the roll of papyrus which you had on the table that night. It is
in that drawer, I think."

"No, no," shouted Bellingham. "Don't burn that! Why, man, you don't
know what you do. It is unique; it contains wisdom which is nowhere
else to be found."

"Out with it!"

"But look here, Smith, you can't really mean it. I'll share the
knowledge with you. I'll teach you all that is in it. Or, stay, let me
only copy it before you burn it!"

Smith stepped forward and turned the key in the drawer. Taking out the
yellow, curled roll of paper, he threw it into the fire, and pressed
it down with his heel. Bellingham screamed, and grabbed at it; but
Smith pushed him back and stood over it until it was reduced to a
formless, grey ash.

"Now, Master B.," said he, "I think I have pretty well drawn your
teeth. You'll hear from me again, if you return to your old tricks.
And now good morning, for I must go back to my studies."

And such is the narrative of Abercrombie Smith as to the singular
events which occurred in Old College, Oxford, in the spring of '84. As
Bellingham left the university immediately afterwards, and was last
heard of in the Soudan, there is no one who can contradict his
statement. But the wisdom of men is small, and the ways of Nature are
strange, and who shall put a bound to the dark things which may be
found by those who seek for them?



"DE PROFUNDIS"

So long as the oceans are the ligaments which bind together the great,
broadcast British Empire, so long will there be a dash of romance in
our minds. For the soul is swayed by the waters, as the waters are by
the moon, and when the great highways of an empire are along such
roads as these, so full of strange sights and sounds, with danger ever
running like a hedge on either side of the course, it is a dull mind
indeed which does not bear away with it some trace of such a passage.
And now, Britain lies far beyond herself, for the three-mile limit of
every seaboard is her frontier, which has been won by hammer and loom
and pick rather than by arts of war. For it is written in history that
neither king nor army can bar the path to the man who, having twopence
in his strong-box, and knowing well where he can turn it to
threepence, sets his mind to that one end. And as the frontier has
been broadened, the mind of Britain has been broadened, too, spreading
out until all men can see that the ways of the island are continental,
even as those of the Continent are insular.

But for this a price must be paid, and the price is a grievous one. As
the beast of old must have one young, human life as a tribute every
year, so to our Empire we throw from day to day the pick and flower of
our youth. The engine is world-wide and strong, but the only fuel that
will drive it is the lives of British men. Thus it is that in the
grey, old cathedrals as we look round upon the brasses on the walls,
we see strange names, such names as they who reared those walls had
never heard, for it is in Peshawur, and Umballah, and Korti, and Fort
Pearson that the youngsters die, leaving only a precedent and a brass
behind them. But if every man had his obelisk, even where he lay, then
no frontier line need be drawn, for a cordon of British graves would
ever show how high the Anglo-Celtic tide had lapped.

This, then, as well as the waters which join us to the world, has done
something to tinge us with romance. For when so many have their loved
ones over the seas, walking amid hillmen's bullets, or swamp malaria,
where death is sudden and distance great, then mind communes with
mind, and strange stories arise of dream, presentiment, or vision,
where the mother sees her dying son, and is past the first bitterness
of her grief ere the message comes which should have broken the news.
The learned have of late looked into the matter and have even labelled
it with a name; but what can we know more of it save that a poor,
stricken soul, when hard-pressed and driven, can shoot across the
earth some ten-thousand-mile-distant picture of its trouble to the
mind which is most akin to it. Far be it from me to say that there
lies no such power within us, for of all things which the brain will
grasp the last will be itself; but yet it is well to be very cautious
over such matters, for once at least I have known that which was
within the laws of Nature seem to be far upon the further side of
them.

John Vansittart was the younger partner of the firm of Hudson and
Vansittart, coffee exporters of the Island of Ceylon, three-quarters
Dutchman by descent, but wholly English in his sympathies. For years I
had been his agent in London, and when in '72 he came over to England
for a three months' holiday, he turned to me for the introductions
which would enable him to see something of town and country life.
Armed with seven letters he left my offices, and for many weeks
scrappy notes from different parts of the country let me know that he
had found favour in the eyes of my friends. Then came word of his
engagement to Emily Lawson, of a cadet branch of the Hereford Lawsons,
and at the very tail of the first flying rumour the news of his
absolute marriage, for the wooing of a wanderer must be short, and the
days were already crowding on towards the date when he must be upon
his homeward journey. They were to return together to Colombo in one
of the firm's own thousand-ton, barque-rigged sailing ships, and this
was to be their princely honeymoon, at once a necessity and a delight.

Those were the royal days of coffee-planting in Ceylon, before a
single season and a rotting fungus drove a whole community through
years of despair to one of the greatest commercial victories which
pluck and ingenuity ever won. Not often is it that men have the heart
when their one great industry is withered to rear up, in a few years,
another as rich to take its place, and the tea-fields of Ceylon are as
true a monument to courage as is the lion at Waterloo. But in '72
there was no cloud yet above the skyline, and the hopes of the
planters were as high and as bright as the hill-sides on which they
reared their crops. Vansittart came down to London with his young and
beautiful wife. I was introduced, dined with them, and it was finally
arranged that I, since business called me also to Ceylon, should be a
fellow-passenger with them on the /Eastern Star/, which was timed to
sail on the following Monday.

It was on the Sunday evening that I saw him again. He was shown up
into my rooms about nine o'clock at night, with the air of a man who
is bothered and out of sorts. His hand, as I shook it, was hot and
dry.

"I wish, Atkinson," said he, "that you could give me a little
lime-juice and water. I have a beastly thirst upon me, and the more I
take the more I seem to want."

I rang and ordered a caraffe and glasses. "You are flushed," said I.
"You don't look the thing."

"No, I'm clean off colour. Got a touch of rheumatism in my back, and
don't seem to taste my food. It is this vile London that is choking
me. I'm not used to breathing air which has been used up by four
million lungs all sucking away on every side of you." He flapped his
crooked hands before his face, like a man who really struggles for
breath.

"A touch of the sea will soon set you right."

"Yes, I'm of one mind with you there. That's the thing for me. I want
no other doctor. If I don't get to sea to-morrow I'll have an illness.
There are no two ways about it." He drank off a tumbler of lime-juice,
and clapped his two hands with his knuckles doubled up into the small
of his back.

"That seams to ease me," said he, looking at me with a filmy eye. "Now
I want your help, Atkinson, for I am rather awkwardly placed."

"As how?"

"This way. My wife's mother got ill and wired for her. I couldn't
go--you know best yourself how tied I have been--so she had to go
alone. Now I've had another wire to say that she can't come to-morrow,
but that she will pick up the ship at Falmouth on Wednesday. We put in
there, you know, though I count it hard, Atkinson, that a man should
be asked to believe in a mystery, and cursed if he can't do it.
Cursed, mind you, no less." He leaned forward and began to draw a
catchy breath like a man who is poised on the very edge of a sob.

Then first it came into my mind that I had heard much of the
hard-drinking life of the island, and that from brandy came these wild
words and fevered hands. The flushed cheek and the glazing eye were
those of one whose drink is strong upon him. Sad it was to see so
noble a young man in the grip of that most bestial of all the devils.

"You should lie down," I said, with some severity.

He screwed up his eyes like a man who is striving to wake himself, and
looked up with an air of surprise.

"So I shall presently," said he, quite rationally. "I felt quite
swimmy just now, but I am my own man again now. Let me see, what was I
talking about? Oh ah, of course, about the wife. She joins the ship at
Falmouth. Now I want to go round by water. I believe my health depends
upon it. I just want a little clean, first-lung air to set me on my
feet again. I ask you, like a good fellow, to go to Falmouth by rail,
so that in case we should be late you may be there to look after the
wife. Put up at the Royal Hotel, and I will wire her that you are
there. Her sister will bring her down, so that it will be all plain
sailing."

"I'll do it with pleasure," said I. "In fact, I would rather go by
rail, for we shall have enough and to spare of the sea before we reach
Colombo. I believe, too, that you badly need a change. Now, I should
go and turn in, if I were you."

"Yes, I will. I sleep aboard to-night. You know," he continued, as the
film settled down again over his eyes, "I've not slept well the last
few nights. I've been troubled with theolololog--that is to say,
theolological--hang it," with a desperate effort, "with the doubts of
theolologicians. Wondering why the Almighty made us, you know, and why
He made our heads swimmy, and fixed little pains into the small of our
backs. Maybe I'll do better to-night." He rose and steadied himself
with an effort against the corner of the chair back.

"Look here, Vansittart," said I gravely, stepping up to him, and
laying my hand upon his sleeve, "I can give you a shakedown here. You
are not fit to go out. You are all over the place. You've been mixing
your drinks."

"Drinks!" He stared at me stupidly.

"You used to carry your liquor better than this."

"I give you my word, Atkinson, that I have not had a drain for two
days. It's not drink. I don't know what it is. I suppose you think
this is drink." He took up my hand in his burning grasp, and passed it
over his own forehead.

"Great Lord!" said I.

His skin felt like a thin sheet of velvet beneath which lies a
close-packed layer of small shot. It was smooth to the touch at any
one place, but to a finger passed along it, rough as a nutmeg-grater.

"It's all right," said he, smiling at my startled face. "I've had the
prickly heat nearly as bad."

"But this is never prickly heat."

"No, it's London. It's breathing bad air. But to-morrow it'll be all
right. There's a surgeon aboard, so I shall be in safe hands. I must
be off now."

"Not you," said I, pushing him back into a chair. "This is past a
joke. You don't move from here until a doctor sees you. Just stay
where you are."

I caught up my hat, and rushing round to the house of a neighbouring
physician, I brought him back with me. The room was empty and
Vansittart gone. I rang the bell. The servant said that the gentleman
had ordered a cab the instant that I had left, and had gone off in it.
He had told the cabman to drive to the docks.

"Did the gentleman seem ill?" I asked.

"Ill!" The man smiled. "No, sir, he was singin' his 'ardest all the
time."

The information was not as reassuring as my servant seemed to think,
but I reflected that he was going straight back to the /Eastern Star/,
and that there was a doctor aboard of her, so that there was nothing
which I could do in the matter. None the less, when I thought of his
thirst, his burning hands, his heavy eye, his tripping speech, and
lastly, of that leprous forehead, I carried with me to bed an
unpleasant memory of my visitor and his visit.

At eleven o'clock next day I was at the docks, but the /Eastern Star/
had already moved down the river, and was nearly at Gravesend. To
Gravesend I went by train, but only to see her topmasts far off, with
a plume of smoke from a tug in front of her. I would hear no more of
my friend until I rejoined him at Falmouth. When I got back to my
offices, a telegram was awaiting me from Mrs. Vansittart, asking me to
meet her; and next evening found us both at the Royal Hotel, Falmouth,
where we were to wait for the /Eastern Star/. Ten days passed, and
there came no news of her.

They were ten days which I am not likely to forget. On the very day
that the /Eastern Star/ had cleared from the Thames, a furious,
easterly gale had sprung up, and blew on from day to day for the
greater part of a week without the sign of a lull. Such a screaming,
raving, long-drawn storm has never been known on the southern coast.
From our hotel windows the sea view was all banked in haze, with a
little rain-swept half-circle under our very eyes, churned and lashed
into one tossing stretch of foam. So heavy was the wind upon the waves
that little sea could rise, for the crest of each billow was torn
shrieking from it, and lashed broadcast over the bay. Clouds, wind,
sea, all were rushing to the west, and there, looking down at this mad
jumble of elements, I waited on day after day, my sole companion a
white, silent woman, with terror in her eyes, her forehead pressed
ever against the window, her gaze from early morning to the fall of
night fixed upon that wall of grey haze through which the loom of a
vessel might come. She said nothing, but that face of hers was one
long wail of fear.

On the fifth day I took counsel with an old seaman. I should have
preferred to have done so alone, but she saw me speak with him, and
was at our side in an instant, with parted lips and a prayer in her
eyes.

"Seven days out from London," said he, "and five in the gale. Well,
the Channel's swept clear by this wind. There's three things for it.
She may have popped into port on the French side. That's like enough."

"No, no; he knew we were here. He would have telegraphed."

"Ah, yes, so he would. Well, then, he might have run for it, and if he
did that he won't be very far from Madeira by now. That'll be it,
marm, you may depend."

"Or else? You said there was a third chance."

"Did I, marm. No, only two, I think. I don't think I said anything of
a third. Your ship's out there, depend upon it, away out in the
Atlantic, and you'll hear of it time enough, for the weather is
breaking. Now don't you fret, marm, and wait quiet and you'll find a
real blue Cornish sky to-morrow."

The old seaman was right in his surmise, for the next day broke calm
and bright, with only a low, dwindling cloud in the west to mark the
last trailing wreaths of the storm-wrack. But still there came no word
from the sea, and no sign of the ship. Three more weary days had
passed, the weariest that I have ever spent, when there came a
seafaring man to the hotel with a letter. I gave a shout of joy. It
was from the captain of the /Eastern Star/. As I read the first lines
of it I whisked my hand over it, but she laid her own upon it and drew
it away. "I have seen it," said she, in a cold, quiet voice. "I may as
well see the rest, too."


"Dear Sir," said the letter,

"Mr. Vansittart is down with the small-pox, and we are blown so far
on our course that we don't know what to do, he being off his head
and unfit to tell us. By dead reckoning we are but three hundred
miles from Funchal, so I take it that it is best that we should
push on there, get Mr. V. into hospital, and wait in the Bay until
you come. There's a sailing-ship due from Falmouth to Funchal in a
few days' time, as I understand. This goes by the brig /Marian/ of
Falmouth, and five pounds is due to the master,

"Yours respectfully,
"JNO. HINES."


She was a wonderful woman that, only a chit of a girl fresh from
school, but as quiet and strong as a man. She said nothing--only
pressed her lips together tight, and put on her bonnet.

"You are going out?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Can I be of use?"

"No; I am going to the doctor's."

"To the doctor's?"

"Yes. To learn how to nurse a small-pox case."

She was busy at that all the evening, and next morning we were off
with a fine ten-knot breeze in the barque /Rose of Sharon/ for
Madeira. For five days we made good time, and were no great way from
the island; but on the sixth there fell a calm, and we lay without
motion on a sea of oil, heaving slowly, but making not a foot of way.

At ten o'clock that night Emily Vansittart and I stood leaning on the
starboard railing of the poop, with a full moon shining at our backs,
and casting a black shadow of the barque, and of our own two heads,
upon the shining water. From the shadow a broadening path of moonshine
stretched away to the lonely skyline, flickering and shimmering in the
gentle heave of the swell. We were talking with bent heads, chatting
of the calm, of the chances of wind, of the look of the sky, when
there came a sudden plop, like a rising salmon, and there, in the
clear light, John Vansittart sprang out of the water and looked up at
us.

I never saw anything clearer in my life than I saw that man. The moon
shone full upon him, and he was but three oars' length away. His face
was more puffed than when I had seen him last, mottled here and there
with dark scabs, his mouth and eyes open as one who is struck with
some overpowering surprise. He had some white stuff streaming from his
shoulders, and one hand was raised to his ear, the other crooked
across his breast. I saw him leap from the water into the air, and in
the dead calm the waves of his coming lapped up against the sides of
the vessel. Then his figure sank back into the water again, and I
heard a rending, crackling sound like a bundle of brushwood snapping
in the fire on a frosty night. There were no signs of him when I
looked again, but a swift swirl and eddy on the still sea still marked
the spot where he had been. How long I stood there, tingling to my
finger-tips, holding up an unconscious woman with one hand, clutching
at the rail of the vessel with the other, was more than I could
afterwards tell. I had been noted as a man of slow and unresponsive
emotions, but this time at least I was shaken to the core. Once and
twice I struck my foot upon the deck to be certain that I was indeed
the master of my own senses, and that this was not some mad prank of
an unruly brain. As I stood, still marvelling, the woman shivered,
opened her eyes, gasped, and then standing erect with her hands upon
the rail, looked out over the moonlit sea with a face which had aged
ten years in a summer night.

"You saw his vision?" she murmured.

"I saw something."

"It was he! It was John! He is dead!"

I muttered some lame words of doubt.

"Doubtless he died at this hour," she whispered. "In hospital at
Madeira. I have read of such things. His thoughts were with me. His
vision came to me. Oh, my John, my dear, dear, lost John!"

She broke out suddenly into a storm of weeping, and I led her down
into her cabin, where I left her with her sorrow. That night a brisk
breeze blew up from the east, and in the evening of the next day we
passed the two islets of Los Desertos, and dropped anchor at sundown
in the Bay of Funchal. The /Eastern Star/ lay no great distance from
us, with the quarantine flag flying from her main, and her Jack
half-way up her peak.

"You see," said Mrs. Vansittart quickly. She was dry-eyed now, for she
had known how it would be.

That night we received permission from the authorities to move on
board the /Eastern Star/. The captain, Hines, was waiting upon deck
with confusion and grief contending upon his bluff face as he sought
for words with which to break this heavy tidings, but she took the
story from his lips.

"I know that my husband is dead," she said. "He died yesterday night,
about ten o'clock, in hospital at Madeira, did he not?"

The seaman stared aghast. "No, marm, he died eight days ago at sea,
and we had to bury him out there, for we lay in a belt of calm, and
could not say when we might make the land."

Well, those are the main facts about the death of John Vansittart, and
his appearance to his wife somewhere about lat. 35 N. and long. 15 W.
A clearer case of a wraith has seldom been made out, and since then it
has been told as such, and put into print as such, and endorsed by a
learned society as such, and so floated off with many others to
support the recent theory of telepathy. For myself, I hold telepathy
to be proved, but I would snatch this one case from amid the evidence,
and say that I do not think that it was the wraith of John Vansittart,
but John Vansittart himself whom we saw that night leaping into the
moonlight out of the depths of the Atlantic. It has ever been my
belief that some strange chance--one of those chances which seem so
improbable and yet so constantly occur--had becalmed us over the very
spot where the man had been buried a week before. For the rest, the
surgeon tells me that the leaden weight was not too firmly fixed, and
that seven days bring about changes which fetch a body to the surface.
Coming from the depth to which the weight would have sunk it, he
explains that it might well attain such a velocity as to carry it
clear of the water. Such is my own explanation of the matter, and if
you ask me what then became of the body, I must recall to you that
snapping, crackling sound, with the swirl in the water. The shark is a
surface feeder and is plentiful in those parts.



THE LIFT

Flight-Commander Stangate should have been happy. He had come safely
through the war without a hurt, and with a good name in the most
heroic of services. He had only just turned thirty, and a great career
seemed to lie ahead of him. Above all, beautiful Mary MacLean was
walking by his side, and he had her promise that she was there for
life. What could a young man ask for more? And yet there was a heavy
load upon his heart.

He could not explain it himself, and endeavoured to reason himself out
of it. There was the blue sky above him, the blue sea in front, the
beautiful gardens with their throngs of happy pleasure-seekers around.
Above all, there was that sweet face turned upon his with questioning
concern. Why could he not raise himself to so joyful an environment?
He made effort after effort, but they were not convincing enough to
deceive the quick instinct of a loving woman.

"What is it, Tom?" she asked anxiously. "I can see that something is
clouding you. Do tell me if I can help you in any way."

He laughed in shamefaced fashion.

"It is such a sin to spoil our little outing," he said. "I could kick
myself round these gardens when I think of it. Don't worry, my
darling, for I know the cloud will roll off. I suppose I am a creature
of nerves, though I should have got past that by now. The Flying
Service is supposed either to break you or to warrant you for life."

"It is nothing definite, then?"

"No, it is nothing definite. That's the worst of it. You could fight
it more easily if it was. It's just a dead, heavy depression here in
my chest and across my forehead. But do forgive me, dear girl! What a
brute I am to shadow you like this."

"But I love to share even the smallest trouble."

"Well, it's gone--vamosed--vanished. We will talk about it no more."

She gave him a swift, penetrating glance.

"No, no, Tom; your brow shows, as well as feels. Tell me, dear, have
you often felt like this? You really look very ill. Sit here, dear, in
the shade and tell me of it."

They sat together in the shadow of the great, latticed Tower which
reared itself six hundred feet high beside them.

"I have an absurd faculty," said he; "I don't know that I have ever
mentioned it to anyone before. But when imminent danger is threatening
me I get these strange forebodings. Of course it is absurd to-day in
these peaceful surroundings. It only shows how utterly queerly these
things work. But it is the first time that it has deceived me."

"When had you it before?"

"When I was a lad it seized me one morning. I was nearly drowned that
afternoon. I had it when the burglar came to Morton Hall and I got a
bullet through my coat. Then twice in the war when I was overmatched
and escaped by a miracle, I had this strange feeling before ever I
climbed into my machine. Then it lifts quite suddenly, like a mist in
the sunshine. Why, it is lifting now. Look at me! Can't you see that
it is so?"

She could indeed. He had turned in a minute from a haggard man to a
laughing boy. She found herself laughing in sympathy. A rush of high
spirits and energy had swept away his strange foreboding and filled
his whole soul with the vivid, dancing joy of youth.

"Thank goodness!" he cried. "I think it is your dear eyes that have
done it. I could not stand that wistful look in them. What a silly,
foolish nightmare it all has been! There's an end for ever in my
belief in presentiments. Now, dear girl, we have just time for one
good turn before luncheon. After that the gardens get so crowded that
it is hopeless to do anything. Shall we have a side-show, or the great
wheel, or the flying boat, or what?"

"What about the Tower?" she asked, glancing upwards. "Surely that
glorious air and the view from the top would drive the last wisps of
cloud out of your mind."

He looked at his watch.

"Well, it's past twelve, but I suppose we could do it all in an hour.
But it doesn't seem to be working. What about it, conductor?"

The man shook his head and pointed to a little knot of people who were
assembled at the entrance.

"They've all been waiting, sir. It's hung up, but the gear is being
overhauled, and I expect the signal every minute. If you join the
others I promise it won't be long."

They had hardly reached the group when the steel face of the lift
rolled aside--a sign that there was hope in the future. The motley
crowd drifted through the opening and waited expectantly upon the
wooden platform. They were not numerous, for the gardens are not
crowded until the afternoon, but they were fair samples of the kindly,
good-humoured north-country folk who take their annual holiday at
Northam. Their faces were all upturned now, and they were watching
with keen interest a man who was descending the steel framework. It
seemed a dangerous, precarious business, but he came as swiftly as an
ordinary mortal upon a staircase.

"My word!" said the conductor, glancing up. "Jim has got a move on
this morning."

"Who is he?" asked Commander Stangate.

"That's Jim Barnes, sir, the best workman that ever went on a
scaffold. He fair lives up there. Every bolt and rivet are under his
care. He's a wonder, is Jim."

"But don't argue religion with him," said one of the group.

The attendant laughed.

"Ah, you know him, then," said he. "No, don't argue religion with
him."

"Why not?" asked the officer.

"Well, he takes it very hard, he does. He's the shining light of his
sect."

"It ain't hard to be that," said the knowing one. "I've heard there
are only six folk in the fold. He's one of those who picture heaven as
the exact size of their own back street conventicle and everyone else
left outside it."

"Better not tell him so while he's got that hammer in his hand," said
the conductor, in a hurried whisper. "Hallo, Jim, how goes it this
morning?"

The man slid swiftly down the last thirty feet, and then balanced
himself on a cross-bar while he looked at the little group in the
lift. As he stood there, clad in a leather suit, with his pliers and
other tools dangling from his brown belt, he was a figure to please
the eye of an artist. The man was very tall and gaunt, with great,
straggling limbs and every appearance of giant strength. His face was
a remarkable one, noble and yet sinister, with dark eyes and hair, a
prominent, hooked nose, and a beard which flowed over his chest. He
steadied himself with one knotted hand, while the other held a steel
hammer dangling by his knee.

"It's all ready aloft," said he. "I'll go up with you if I may." He
sprang down from his perch and joined the others in the lift.

"I suppose you are always watching it," said the young lady.

"That is what I am engaged for, miss. From morning to night, and often
from night to morning, I am up here. There are times when I feel as if
I were not a man at all, but a fowl of the air. They fly round me, the
creatures, as I lie out on the girders, and they cry to me until I
find myself crying back to the poor, soulless things."

"It's a great charge," said the Commander, glancing up at the
wonderful tracery of steel outlined against the deep blue sky.

"Aye, sir, and there is not a nut nor a screw that is not in my
keeping. Here's my hammer to ring them true and my spanner to wrench
them tight. As the Lord over the earth, so am I--even I--over the
Tower, with power of life and power of death, aye of death and of
life."

The hydraulic machinery had begun to work and the lift very slowly
ascended. As it mounted, the glorious panorama of the coast and bay
gradually unfolded itself. So engrossing was the view that the
passengers hardly noticed it when the platform stopped abruptly
between stages at the five hundred foot level. Barnes, the workman,
muttered that something must be amiss, and springing like a cat across
the gap which separated them from the trellis-work of metal he
clambered out of sight. The motley little party, suspended in mid-air,
lost something of their British shyness under such unwonted conditions
and began to compare notes with each other. One couple, who addressed
each other as Dolly and Billy, announced to the company that they were
the particular stars of the Hippodrome bill, and kept their neighbours
tittering with their rather obvious wit. A buxom mother, her
precocious son, and two married couples upon holiday formed an
appreciative audience.

"You'd like to be a sailor, would you?" said Billy the comedian, in
answer to some remark of the boy. "Look 'ere, my nipper, you'll end up
as a blooming corpse if you ain't careful. See 'im standin' at the
edge. At this hour of the morning I can't bear to watch it."

"What's the hour got to do with it?" asked a stout commercial
traveller.

"My nerves are worth nothin' before midday. Why, lookin' down there,
and seein' those folks like dots, puts me all in a twitter. My family
is all alike in the mornin'."

"I expect," said Dolly, a high-coloured young woman, "that they're all
alike the evening before."

There was a general laugh, which was led by the comedian.

"You got it across that time, Dolly. It's K.O. for Battling
Billy--still senseless when last heard of. If my family is laughed at
I'll leave the room."

"It's about time we did," said the commercial traveller, who was a
red-faced, choleric person. "It's a disgrace the way they hold us up.
I'll write to the company."

"Where's the bell-push?" said Billy. "I'm goin' to ring."

"What for--the waiter?" asked the lady.

"For the conductor, the chauffeur, whoever it is that drives the old
bus up and down. Have they run out of petrol, or broke the mainspring,
or what?"

"We have a fine view, anyhow," said the Commander.

"Well, I've had that," remarked Billy. "I'm done with it, and I'm for
getting on."

"I'm getting nervous," cried the stout mother. "I do hope there is
nothing wrong with the lift."

"I say, hold on to the slack of my coat, Dolly. I'm going to look over
and chance it. Oh, Lord, it makes me sick and giddy! There's a horse
down under, and it ain't bigger than a mouse. I don't see anyone
lookin' after us. Where's old Isaiah the prophet who came up with us?"

"He shinned out of it mighty quick when he thought trouble was
coming."

"Look here," said Dolly, looking very perturbed, "this is a nice
thing, I don't think. Here we are five hundred foot up, and stuck for
the day as like as not. I'm due for the /matinée/ at the Hippodrome.
I'm sorry for the company if they don't get me down in time for that.
I'm billed all over the town for a new song."

"A new one! What's that, Dolly?"

"A real pot o' ginger, I tell you. It's called 'On the Road to Ascot.'
I've got a hat four foot across to sing it in."

"Come on, Dolly, let's have a rehearsal while we wait."

"No, no; the young lady here wouldn't understand."

"I'd be very glad to hear it," cried Mary MacLean. "Please don't let
me prevent you."

"The words were written to the hat. I couldn't sing the verses without
the hat. But there's a nailin' good chorus to it:

"'If you want a little mascot
When you're on the way to Ascot,
Try the lady with the cartwheel hat.'"

She had a tuneful voice and a sense of rhythm which set everyone
nodding. "Try it now all together," she cried; and the strange little
haphazard company sang it with all their lungs.

"I say," said Billy, "that ought to wake somebody up. What? Let's try
a shout all together."

It was a fine effort, but there was no response. It was clear that the
management down below was quite ignorant or impotent. No sound came
back to them.

The passengers became alarmed. The commercial traveller was rather
less rubicund. Billy still tried to joke, but his efforts were not
well received. The officer in his blue uniform at once took his place
as rightful leader in a crisis. They all looked to him and appealed to
him.

"What would you advise, sir? You don't think there's any danger of it
coming down, do you?"

"Not the least. But it's awkward to be stuck here all the same. I
think I could jump across on to that girder. Then perhaps I could see
what is wrong."

"No, no, Tim; for goodness' sake, don't leave us!"

"Some people have a nerve," said Billy. "Fancy jumping across a
five-hundred-foot drop!"

"I dare say the gentleman did worse things in the war."

"Well, I wouldn't do it myself--not if they starred me in the bills.
It's all very well for old Isaiah. It's his job, and I wouldn't do him
out of it."

Three sides of the lift were shut in with wooden partitions, pierced
with windows for the view. The fourth side, facing the sea, was clear.
Stangate leaned over as far as he could and looked upwards. As he did
so there came from above him a peculiar, sonorous, metallic twang, as
if a mighty harp-string had been struck. Some distance up--a hundred
feet, perhaps--he could see a long, brown, corded arm, which was
working furiously among the wire cordage above. The form was beyond
his view, but he was fascinated by this bare, sinewy arm which tugged
and pulled and sagged and stabbed.

"It's all right," he said, and a general sigh of relief broke from his
strange comrades at his words. "There is someone above us setting
things right."

"It's old Isaiah," said Billy, stretching his neck round the corner.
"I can't see him, but it's his arm for a dollar. What's that he's got
in his hand? Looks like a screwdriver or something. No, by George,
it's a file."

As he spoke there came another sonorous twang from above. There was a
troubled frown upon the officer's brow.

"I say, dash it all, that's the very sound our steel hawser made when
it parted, strand by strand, at Dixmude. What the deuce is the fellow
about? Heh, there! what are you trying to do?"

The man had ceased his work and was now slowly descending the iron
trellis.

"All right, he's coming," said Stangate to his startled companions.
"It's all right, Mary. Don't be frightened, any of you. It's absurd to
suppose he would really weaken the cord that holds us."

A pair of high boots appeared from above. Then came the leathern
breeches, the belt with its dangling tools, the muscular form, and,
finally, the fierce, swarthy, eagle face of the workman. His coat was
off and his shirt open showing the hairy chest. As he appeared there
came another sharp, snapping vibration from above. The man made his
way down in leisurely fashion, and then, balancing himself upon the
cross-girder and leaning against the side-piece, he stood with folded
arms, looking from under his heavy black brows at the huddled
passengers upon the platform.

"Hallo!" said Stangate. "What's the matter?"

The man stood impassive and silent, with something indescribably
menacing in his fixed, unwinking stare.

The flying officer grew angry.

"Hallo! Are you deaf?" he cried. "How long do you mean to have us
stuck here?"

The man stood silent. There was something devilish in his appearance.

"I'll complain of you, my lad," said Billy, in a quivering voice.
"This won't stop here, I can promise you."

"Look here!" cried the officer. "We have ladies here and you are
alarming them. Why are we stuck here? Has the machinery gone wrong?"

"You are here," said the man, "because I have put a wedge against the
hawser above you."

"You fouled the line! How dared you do such a thing! What right have
you to frighten the women and put us all to this inconvenience? Take
that wedge out this instant, or it will be the worse for you."

The man was silent.

"Do you hear what I say? Why the devil don't you answer? Is this a
joke or what? We've had about enough of it, I tell you."

Mary MacLean had gripped her lover by the arm in an agony of sudden
panic.

"Oh, Tom!" she cried. "Look at his eyes--look at his horrible eyes!
The man is a maniac."

The workman stirred suddenly into sinister life. His dark face broke
into writhing lines of passion, and his fierce eyes glowed like
embers, while he shook one long arm in the air.

"Behold," he cried, "those who are mad to the children of this world
are in very truth the Lord's anointed and the dwellers in the inner
temple. Lo, I am one who is prepared to testify even to the uttermost,
for of a verity the day has now come when the humble will be exalted
and the wicked will be cut off in their sins!"

"Mother! Mother!" cried the little boy, in terror.

"There, there! It's all right, Jack," said the buxom woman, and then,
in a burst of womanly wrath, "What d'you want to make the child cry
for? You're a pretty man, you are!"

"Better he should cry now than in the outer darkness. Let him seek
safety while there is yet time."

The officer measured the gap with a practised eye. It was a good eight
feet across, and the fellow could push him over before he could steady
himself. It would be a desperate thing to attempt. He tried soothing
words once more.

"See here, my lad, you've carried this joke too far. Why should you
wish to injure us? Just shin up and get that wedge out, and we will
agree to say no more about it."

Another rending snap came from above.

"By George, the hawser is going!" cried Stangate. "Here! Stand aside!
I'm coming over to see to it."

The workman had plucked the hammer from his belt, and waved it
furiously in the air.

"Stand back, young man! Stand back! Or come--if you would hasten your
end."

"Tom, Tom, for God's sake, don't spring! Help! Help!"

The passengers all joined in the cry for aid. The man smiled malignly
as he watched them.

"There is no one to help. They could not come if they would. You would
be wiser to turn to your own souls that ye be not cast to the burning.
Lo, strand by strand the cable snaps which holds you. There is yet
another, and with each that goes there is more strain upon the rest.
Five minutes of time, and all eternity beyond."

A moan of fear rose from the prisoners in the lift. Stangate felt a
cold sweat upon his brow as he passed his arm round the shrinking
girl. If this vindictive devil could only be coaxed away for an
instant he would spring across and take his chance in a hand-to-hand
fight.

"Look here, my friend! We give you best!" he cried. "We can do
nothing. Go up and cut the cable if you wish. Go on--do it now, and
get it over!"

"That you may come across unharmed. Having set my hand to the work, I
will not draw back from it."

Fury seized the young officer.

"You devil!" he cried. "What do you stand there grinning for? I'll
give you something to grin about. Give me a stick, one of you."

The man waved his hammer.

"Come, then! Come to judgment!" he howled.

"He'll murder you, Tom! Oh, for God's sake, don't! If we must die, let
us die together."

"I wouldn't try it, sir," cried Billy. "He'll strike you down before
you get a footing. Hold up, Dolly, my dear! Faintin' won't 'elp us.
You speak to him, miss. Maybe he'll listen to you."

"Why should you wish to hurt us?" said Mary. "What have we ever done
to you? Surely you will be sorry afterwards if we are injured. Now do
be kind and reasonable and help us get back to the ground."

For a moment there may have been some softening in the man's fierce
eyes as he looked at the sweet face which was upturned to him. Then
his features set once more into their grim lines of malice.

"My hand is set to the work, woman. It is not for the servant to look
back from his task."

"But why should this be your task?"

"Because there is a voice within me which tells me so. In the
night-time I have heard it, and in the day-time too, when I have lain
out alone upon the girders and seen the wicked dotting the streets
beneath me, each busy on his own evil intent. 'John Barnes, John
Barnes,' said the voice. 'You are here that you may give a sign to a
sinful generation--such a sign as shall show them that the Lord liveth
and that there is a judgment upon sin.' Who am I that I should disobey
the voice of the Lord?"

"The voice of the devil," said Stangate. "What is the sin of this
lady, or of these others, that you should seek their lives?"

"You are as the others, neither better nor worse. All day they pass
me, load by load, with foolish cries and empty songs and vain babble
of voices. Their thoughts are set upon the things of the flesh. Too
long have I stood aside and watched and refused to testify. But now
the day of wrath is come and the sacrifice is ready. Think not that a
woman's tongue can turn me from my task."

"It is useless!" Mary cried. "Useless! I read death in his eyes."

Another cord had snapped.

"Repent! Repent!" cried the madman. "One more, and it is over."

Commander Stangate felt as if it were all some extraordinary
dream--some monstrous nightmare. Could it be possible that he, after
all his escapes of death in warfare, was now, in the heart of peaceful
England, at the mercy of a homicidal lunatic, and that his dear girl,
the one being whom he would shield from the very shadow of danger, was
helpless before this horrible man? All his energy and manhood rose up
in him for one last effort.

"Here, we won't be killed like sheep in the shambles!" he cried,
throwing himself against the wooden wall of the lift and kicking with
all his force. "Come on, boys! Kick it! Beat it! It's only
match-boarding, and it is giving. Smash it down! Well done! Once more
all together! There she goes! Now for the side! Out with it!
Splendid!"

First the back and then the side of the little compartment had been
knocked out, and the splinters dropped down into the abyss. Barnes
danced upon his girder, his hammer in the air.

"Strive not!" he shrieked. "It avails not. The day is surely come."

"It's not two feet from the side-girder," cried the officer. "Get
across! Quick! Quick! All of you. I'll hold this devil off!" He had
seized a stout stick from the commercial traveller and faced the
madman, daring him to spring across.

"Your turn now, my friend!" he hissed. "Come on, hammer and all! I'm
ready for you."

Above him he heard another snap, and the frail platform began to rock.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that his companions were all safe
upon the side-girder. A strange line of terrified castaways they
appeared as they clung in an ungainly row to the trellis-work of
steel. But their feet were on the iron support. With two quick steps
and a spring he was at their side. At the same instant the murderer,
hammer in hand, jumped the gap. They had one vision of him there--a
vision which will haunt their dreams--the convulsed face, the blazing
eyes, the wind-tossed, raven locks. For a moment he balanced himself
upon the swaying platform. The next, with a rending crash, he and it
were gone. There was a long silence and then, far down, the thud and
clatter of a mighty fall.



With white faces, the forlorn group clung to the cold steel bars and
gazed down into the terrible abyss. It was the Commander who broke the
silence.

"They'll send for us now. It's all safe," he cried, wiping his brow.
"But, by Jove, it was a close call!"